Atlantis Base 2
by theassassinnox
Summary: This work is based on Stargate Atlantis. We used the universe and the bad guys, but you will not find any of the cannon characters present. New cast and new adventures! Action, adventure, and plenty of wraithy goodness. Rated M for violence/language.
1. Agi

AN: Please note that this story is, in fact, written by two different authors (plain text for Katie and bold for Benton). What began as a little RP via email turned into something much larger. This is our first public work of any sort, so if you do read, please review and let us know!

This is listed as a Stargate Atlantis Fanfic. In a way it is, as we are playing in that sandbox. All of our characters are original though, so if you are looking for you favorite cannon characters, feel free to back away slowly.

Action, adventure, and wraith ahead! Please enjoy. We're in the planning stages for episode two. Again, if you like what you're reading, please let us know. Thanks!

.o0o.

Agi

By Katie Lipton and Benton Brahm

.o0o.

Consciousness returned slowly, leaving her wishing that she were still blissfully unaware. She opened her eyes just a crack and was greeted with the sight of a metal slatted wall. She breathed deeply, wincing as she gave silent thanks to the fact that she was able to wake up at all.

She moved slowly, her hand trailing up her side and touching the damp cloth at the bottom of her rib cage. She fingered the hole in her corset where the shrapnel had passed, and as she sat up a wave of pain told her that there were at least another three shards in her back.

She stood, feeling light headed as she took stock of her surroundings. She was in a small empty room; the walls horizontal slats that let her see a larger room beyond.

**Cain woke quickly. He could feel the last of the concussion vanish, leaving his head clear. He took a deep breath enjoying the lack of pain, and checking each of his limbs carefully for any lingering damage. Finding none Cain reached and searched for the rest of the Agi, his people, and found nothing.**

**Cain breathed again, and searched for any minds. Not far from him there were two, alert though unconcerned. They were guards, not his guards though. They were curious about him but didn't consider him a real threat. Fools. They guarded something else, someone else. He reached for that mind, and found pain. Hunger. Rage. Despair. This creature called itself a Wraith. She was a queen of her kind, and she was alone. She was screwed.**

**Cain chuckled and opened his eyes. He was in a cage, and an energy field of some sort surrounded it. Across from him stood two creatures, the likes of which he had never seen outside of a mirror.**

There was a human guard on either side of the door of her prison. She moved slowly, the grace of a true predator showing despite her injuries. She stalked toward the wall, watching with a small amount of satisfaction as the marines both took an involuntary step back. She stopped just short of the wall, giving the impression that she stopped there by choice, not because of the metal or the field that kept her contained.

One of the marines swallowed, then brought his hand up to his ear and spoke softly, "Colonel…she's awake," he listened for a moment, "understood."

Yellow green eyes traveled past the guards to the human that was in a similar chamber across from her. She pinned him with her gaze, taking in the details. She did not miss the tears in his clothing, or the fact that there was a large black blood stain down the front of his shirt. Wraith blood.

**Cain stared at the two creatures standing guard, he barely noticed the one they were guarding. She was just another alien, another "something else". But these, these were like him. Not just similar, but exactly like him. For the longest time the other Agi thought that anything that had only four limbs that stood with an upright posture looked alike. And in that time Cain had gotten very good at spotting the differences quickly. These aliens had two arms, two legs, five fingers, and faces arranged the same as his own.**

**However, the more he examined these creatures, the more he began to feel the differences. Their minds were small, not weak, or at least he had felt weaker, but small. Unable to affect the world, or even look outside of their own skulls.**

**The guards flinched. One of them jerked his weapon to point at something then stopped and shook his head. Cain frowned. The other guard braced himself as though standing his ground against something. He reached deeper not worrying about being detected, and saw what they saw.**

**Something shadowy and indistinct, something that oozed disquiet and fear. Cain looked where the guard did with his own eyes and saw nothing. He looked for the first time at his fellow prisoner. She was small, pale, well dressed. He could feel somewhere deep with in her a concern for how she appeared. She was influencing them. Suggesting things to there minds. This one was interesting. So Cain stood and watched.**

The young Queen masked her features as a wave of dizziness swept through her. She dropped the illusions, swaying slightly. She stepped back and pivoted on a heel, disguising the moment of weakness as an intended movement.

The two guards blinked, looking around, then sharing a significant glance as they straightened at their post. One looked back to their prisoner, who was now standing straight as a rail in the center of her cell, her black solidly to the both of them.

"Everything okay Lieutenant?" The speaker was tall for a woman, standing just under the six foot mark. She had a short-cropped military haircut, and stood with an authority that could not be denied.

Both men snapped to attention. The Lieutenant made his report, "We're fine Colonel. Thought we saw something. Must have been her," he inclined his head to the cell behind him, "I'd read the reports…but experiencing it first-hand…we'll be ready next time."

"Good, see that you are." her brief nod was curt, but the words were softened by a pat on the shoulder.

**Cain frowned at the strange newcomer. The guards acted with deference, as though to an officer, but none of them carried any rank with in the Whole. In fact there was no Whole, Cain could only think that their group-mind must be terribly stupid. He chuckled again and approached the edge of his cage to get a better view for his eyes. He ran a touch of his mind down the field causing it to light up in response.**

**One of the guards glanced up finding him only a hands breadth away, and swallowed. Cain could feel the suppressed desire to jump back in his mind.**

"**Colonel? What about this one, Sir?" the guard asked gesturing at him with that tiny mass driver, one of the Agi would have been able to fit most if it in one hand.**

"Well I suppose that depends on him," she turned, approaching his cell. She looked him up and down. He seemed none the worse for wear, despite the fact that he had been unconscious and fairly tossed around when they had found him. He wore strange clothing, and had Wraith blood all down his front.

"My name is Colonel Samantha Aaren. How are you feeling? Did the wraith hurt you?"

Behind her, the Queen made a small indignant noise. Both marines turned toward her and leveled their guns.

**Cain stared at Samantha for a moment, marveling at arrogance of assuming that he spoke their language while he plucked the meaning of her words from her head. Then laughed as he delivered the meaning of his words back into her mind.**

"**Of course the Wraith hurt me. They were rather desperate to do so. Of course we hurt them first." Cain grinned savagely his gaze snapping briefly to the Queen, "Would you like to see how?"**

Colonel Aaren stared at the strange man for a moment, trying to decide what had just happened. He was speaking a language she had never before heard, and yet the meaning was quite clear.

"While we are pleased to gather any weapons that may aid us in destroying the Wraith, now is neither the time or place for demonstrations," she stared at him hard, "How are you doing that?"

"Doing what Colonel?" One of the marines asked, his eyes flicking back and forth between the wraith, the strange man, and his commanding officer.

"Our new friend seems to be more than he would appear," She raised her hand to her ear and spoke quietly, "Dr. MacKenzie...I'll be needing the results of the scans as soon as they're ready…understood, thank you. I'll be up in a moment."

The Colonel ran a hand back through her short blonde hair as she turned to face the wraith, "We've not caught a female of your species before. Think of all of the things you can teach us."

The Queen remained facing away.

Colonel Aaren slowly paced around the cell, studying her captive. The wraith was much smaller than any of the males they had held before, standing at roughly 5'5". She had black hair, which hung in waves down to her hips. Her skin was a mottled green that was so pale it almost appeared ivory under the florescent lights of the complex. She had some tattoo work around her right eye, stark and sharp, and more ink showed on her left shoulder and the exposed part of that arm. Pale green eyes with slit pupils tracked the Colonel as she made her way to the wall in front of the wraith.

"What? Nothing to say? The others were at least willing to chat."

"And what is it you would like me to say?" the Queen hissed in a multi tonal whisper. She moved to the wall so quickly that the Colonel didn't have a chance to step back before their eyes were inches apart…only separated by the transparent field, "Shall I threaten you?"

**The Colonel laughed, "Threaten me with what? I'm willing to bet that one of the two totaled Hive ships we found belonged to you. Which one? The one that looks like a war zone?" Across the room she just caught the look on the human prisoner's face. A look of pride, and satisfaction almost seemed to emanate from him. "Or the one that's just space debris?"**

**Cain looked up and this time did not bother to speak but merely projected, "What of the third ship? What of my people's remains. What did you do with them?"**

The young Queen struck with amazing speed, her hand snaking out to grab the Colonel's throat. It would have been a fatal blow…had there not been the field. As it was, her hand shot out and hit the invisible barrier with a flash of greenish light. The Colonel remained intact.

She let out a howl of frustration that ended in a hiss as her hand automatically went to the hole in her side.

"We found you on the mostly intact vessel," a small smile played about the Colonel's lips, "but you had one lonely worshipper trying to guard you," her eyes slipped past the Wraith and landed on the blood stained human, "the other Queen had a score of drones around where she fell. No, I imagine you're not much of a threat at this point. Your Hive is gone, your crew is laying dead along with an entire ships worth of who knows what, but they are certainly more frightening than any Wraith I've seen. Plus, you've got more shrapnel in you than I've ever seen a human take and survive. There is another ship floating out there, but it sure isn't Wraith."

A puzzled look passed over the Colonel's features as she looked back to the strange man, then addressed the marines, "Gentlemen, as you were. Contact me if anything comes up." With that she quit the room and headed toward the infirmary. Dr. MacKenzie had mentioned some interesting results in the scans of the human.

**Cain watched the strange human leave. She had called him a Worshiper. Of the Wraith, he assumed. But more importantly his ship remained. Cain smiled. Which meant all he had to do now was wait until his people came for him, and they would come. As certain as entropy, they would come. And may their Whole help any who stood between the Agi and one of their own.**

**.o0o.**

**Colonel Aaren was having a very strange day as she made it into the medbay, and from the look on the Doctor's face it was only going to get stranger.**

"**Doctor? What have you got for me?"**

"**Ah, Samantha. I wish I could say. I finished most of the scans pretty quickly, genetically and physiologically he's human. Beat all to Hell. Based on his injuries he's not going to be waking up any time soon. I doubt you'll be able to ask him any questions for a while now. But the more I look at this the more I doubt he's a Worshiper. He's in fantastic physical shape for one thing. No scars on him for another, though I dare say he'll have some now. But where things get really bizarre is when I got to the neural mapping. His head is... oh I'd say three to four times as dense as ours. There's just more neurons per centimeter, which makes these scans a pain to read but in spite of that I've found at least five complex neural structures that I can't identify. Really Samantha this is all very exciting I would love to get some more samples while he's still unconscious and... Why are you looking at me like that?"**

"Kenna, he's awake. I just spoke with him…more than spoke with him. I'd have sworn he was in my head somehow. Look, I know it sounds crazy, but he's down there speaking a language I've never heard before and he's looking as fit and well as any one of our crew. His words made no sense, but I could completely understand him," the Colonel shook her head, her brown knotted, "I don't know how he did it, but he looks to be in better health than our Wraith."

**.o0o.**

**Cain had been studying the Wraith across from him for a while now. She hungered like nothing he had ever felt before. More interestingly though, she hungered for her guards. She wanted them, desperately, like he wanted water. It had been a while before anybody realized that he needed food and water more often than the other Agi. And like he had thirsted for water, she hungered for the human guards.**

**One of the guards had been talking at him for just as long as he had been looking at the Wraith. Cain didn't listen to dead things. So he had ignored that guard who was obviously trying to establish some superiority over the Wraith through him, because they thought he was less dangerous. Fools, perhaps he would both teach and learn this day.**

**Cain turned to the guard and reached into his mind. Quieting it. Turning most of it off. And leaving buried deep with in its core one overwhelming need, one burning compulsion, one command that could not be disobeyed.**

_**Go to Her.**_

She sat quietly in the center of her cell, watching the guards watch her. One was speaking with the other human across the aisle. She moved slowly, methodically, trying to keep her breathing under control as she unlaced the remains of her corset. The dress below was soaked through with blood, though the sheen was the only tell as the dress was also black.

She set the torn corset aside, her hand once again behind her. A moment later she let out a low hiss and dropped a shard of metal to the floor with a clatter.

The guard watched in morbid fascination as another shard was dropped to the floor, then another, the black blood flowing freely. All the while the Queen's gaze never wavered from her human captors.

The Marine that had been talking left off, evidentially giving up on the silent human, and turned back to the Wraith, stepping closer. Something about his stance set off her predatory instincts, and she mirrored his movements, rising slowly, leaving a black trail as she approached the door.

Before the other marine could stop him, the talkative one swiped his hand over the panel, deactivating the field.

She was on him in an instant. She got a good grip on his collar with her left hand, hauling him against the bars. Her right hand slapped to his chest, and instantly the man began to scream. He went stiff with pain, his eyes rolling back as he visibly began to age.

.o0o.

**Kenna blinked, "He's awake? And he doesn't speak the language? Sam I take everything I just said back, this isn't just exciting- this is unprecedented! This is spectacular! A human being that has survived in a hive ship, and not only that but apparently heals faster than they do. If we can convince him to tell us how he did this, or how his people did..."**

"Slow down Doctor," the Colonel said, holding her hands up in a placating way, "I can see why you're excited, Hell, I'm excited, but I can also tell you that this kid is dangerous. If he can get in our heads, we don't want to leak him intelligence…"

**The colonel's radio clicked and she held up a hand to stall the doctor, "Go."**

**"Sir, I don't know how to say this but..."**

**"Just come out and say it Lieutenant."**

**"Jenkins just... Well, fed himself to the Wraith Sir. We stunned her down but still."**

"What? How did this happen?"

"I don't know Sir, one moment Jenkins was talking to the human, then he turned, walked up to the cell, and deactivated the field. He was gone before I could put her down."

The Colonel clicked off her radio, "Doctor, you're with me," then she turned quickly and headed straight for the detention center.

The scene before them was nothing short of horrendous. Jenkins lay on the floor, his body nothing but a shriveled, skeletal husk. Lieutenant Bradshaw was sitting crouched over the body. The wraith lay on her back just inside the cell door, black blood trailing out behind her, though the skin that showed through the rents in her dress was whole. She still clutched the torn collar of Jenkins' shirt in her left hand.

**The human still stood where Jenkins had left him right up against the edge of the barrier looking calm and unperturbed. He appeared more curious than anything else. Dr. MacKenzie was already kneeling down next to Jenkins' body even though everybody in the room already knew it was too late.**

**The Colonel rounded on the human prisoner who was curiously unfazed by one of the more horrific deaths she, an experienced soldier, had ever seen.**

"**How did this happen?" She asked again. Behind her, Bradshaw just made a helpless gesture. The man before her volunteered an answer.**

"**Perhaps the dead man's mind, realizing it was dead, got tired of waiting for the body to catch up."**

"And what do you mean by that?" the Colonel's voice was dangerously quiet as she stepped closer to the human prisoner. She pinned him with a glare, realizing that he seemed entirely unaffected by what he had just seen.

At that same moment a small med crew arrived with a stretcher to remove the late Jenkins. Dr. MacKenzie followed the stretcher without a word, her face set in the detached mask of a medical professional as they left the brig.

"**You have taken one of the Agi prisoner. My people will come for me." Cain spoke with the absolute certainty of one who spoke of gravity, or the sun rising, and this absolute knowledge of fact transmitted itself along with the meaning of his words. "And when they arrive, you will understand what I mean."**

**Behind the Colonel guards had begun to hose down the Wraith's cell to clean out the blood, and strip her of her filthy, bloodstained clothing.**

Colonel Aaren had experienced a lot during her years of duty, but seldom had she ever come across someone with so much conviction. The words shook her, though she kept her face neutral. When she spoke, her voice was strong, a clear authority in the room, "Finish that up as quickly as you can," she addressed the soldiers who were zipping a much too large jump suit onto the small queen, "we don't know if the stunners are as effective on the females. When you're done, fall back to the hall, post a guard there. I want nobody in or out of this room without my permission, got that?"

"Yes Sir."

She nodded, then headed for the command tower. She needed info on the Agi, and fast.

Precisely three minutes later, the soldiers resealed the cell, retreated to the hall, and closed the bulkhead behind them. The human was left alone with the unconscious wraith.

**Cain smiled. The human leader was beginning to think that she had some idea what was going on. If she only knew. Speaking of things that she didn't know, it was time to perform some additional experiments. And so once again he reached out with his mind, not to the field this time, but past it and into the cell across from him. He lifted the unconscious Wraith into the air, slowly turning her so he finally could get a good look at her. He used an extension of the same power that had used to heal himself to examine her unique physiology. Cain was no doctor, but after having seen many aliens he liked to 'collect' their oddities.**

**.o0o.**

**The command tower was unusually quiet as most of the staff stared at the screen that monitored the prison block. Samantha frowned and started over to see what exactly they were looking at when a voice brought her up short.**

"**Colonel. My office. Now." The voice belonged to one Doctor Malcom Day: the civilian head and governor of their little colony. She adjusted her course and followed Dr. Day into his office and assumed an at ease position.**

"**Sir?"**

"**Don't, 'sir' me Colonel. What the Hell is going on down in the detention wing? You said it was going to be another simple Wraith containment and now we have a man dead, and this!" The doctor gestured to his own monitor where the Wraith rotated slowly in her cell, apparently suspended by nothing. "Well? Explanations?"**

The Colonel simply stared at the screen for a moment, her mouth working but no sound coming out as she tried to understand what she was seeing, "I…I don't know Sir. It must be the human. Don't ask me how though, that's Dr. MacKenzie's gig. I thought I had a wraith worshipper, not a bloody X Man."

"Colonel, this is not a joke."

"With all due respect Sir, I'm not laughing. This may be worse than we thought. He claims to be part of a race called the Agi,"

"One of those saurian monstrosities we found all over the hive?"

"Yes, and they aren't particularly forgiving when it comes to having their people captured. He's as good as told me that it was his people that took-out one Hiveship, and tore up the second. I was on my way to talk to Dr. Russell and see if she could find anything about these "Agi" in the Ancient databases."

"Go."

.o0o.

She was floating on the edge of sleep, the fluid of the hibernation pod suspending her, making her weightless. There was harsh light just beyond her eyelids, and she was beginning to feel cold. Something was wrong.

The young Queen jerked awake, her eyes darting wildly as she looked to the floor several feet below her. A long tendril of wet hair obscured her vision as she slowly rotated mid air. She tossed her head, sending her hair down her back with a wet slap. She tried to reach the wall, the floor, the ceiling, anything that would get her back on her feet. After a moment's struggle, she went still, taking stock of her surroundings.

Her clothing was gone, and in their place was a jump suit that hung past her hands and feet. The floor of her cell was wet, but clean, and the guards were nowhere to be seen. Another rotation brought her back to looking at the cell across the way, where she locked eyes with the human, "How are you doing this?" she demanded.

**Cain examined the Wraith for another revolution. These humans were dead as soon as his people got here. This one, however, might be worth some time. Maybe more. Gently he set the queen down on her feet facing him.**

**When he spoke, he again transmitted his meanings to her mind, "I don't know. My mind is larger, stronger than any others I have ever met. And I have met many. Your mind has more reach and strength than many as well. Is it common to your kind?"**

She approached the field, getting as close as she could without touching it and looked at him through narrowed eyes, "The Wraith are all aware of one another. Our minds can influence those who are weaker. I am young, but strong for my kind."

She sat slowly, keeping her eyes on him the entire time as she viciously cuffed the sleeves and ankles of the offending garment. The Queen tilted her head, her voice inquisitive, "How is it that a human shares this trait?"

.o0o.

"**Russell?" Monique's lab was as always disturbingly neat and tidy. The doctor herself stood in front of a monitor watching as the Wraith was set down and the two prisoners began to converse. Both voices were audible but only the wraith was understandable. The human was still speaking whatever language was his own, only now nobody could understand it.**

"**It's fascinating isn't it Colonel? Probably implants of some kind, very advanced technology, perhaps even on par with the Ancients. Directed electromagnetics? Or maybe applied gravitics? How do they power it I wonder? Maybe..." She trailed off mumbling to her self.**

"Dr. MacKenzie found some interesting things on his head scan, maybe he is some sort of telepath with psychic abilities."

"'Psychic abilities?'" Russell made quotes in the air with her fingers, "Give me a break. That's about as likely as the Wraith deciding she wants to teleport out of her cell. It just isn't going to happen. Besides, there's got to be some perfectly logical…you didn't come here for this discussion did you?"

"No, no I didn't. I need you to search the database for anything having to do with the Agi."

"On it," the Doctor slipped onto a rolling stool and slid herself up to a computer consol. Her fingers danced on the keys for a moment, then Ancient text scrolled across the screen.

Both the Doctor and the Colonel spent a moment staring at the screen, digesting the small amount of information presented.

"Not a lot to go on."

"Space based raiding culture, semi hive intelligence."

"Great."

.o0o.

**Cain snarled, and for a moment, all that the link contained was pain and anger. The temperature in the room plummeted, "I am Agi! I am nothing else. Not human, not Solinede, Agi." Cain took a deep breath, "I am Agi."**

The Queen's head jerked back as though she had been slapped. She rose quickly, distancing herself from the man, "Agi then," her breath created a white plume before her eyes. She began to pace along the back wall of her cell, clearly agitated, "If you say you are stronger than the others you know, are they also able to do such things?"

.o0o.

"**Indeed. Looks like a couple of encounters. They came, they saw, they grabbed everything that wasn't nailed down, and left again. Space Vikings." Dr. Russell looked up and smiled, "Looks like interesting religious requirements, it says here they never leave corpses, theirs or others if they have the time. They never leave their own behind."**

**There was a moment of silence and the soldier and the scientist looked at each other and then the Colonel's radio clicked again. "I'm really starting to hate that thing." She clicked her radio on, "Go."**

"**Sir, the temperature just dropped like a stone. I don't know what's going on down here but, ah... "**

"I'll be right there Lieutenant," she clicked off her radio with a sigh, and glanced back at the monitor. The Wraith was pacing back and forth in her cell, her breath forming clouds as she continued to converse with the human, who looked like he was about ready to murder something.

"Look, it would appear the female of the species can be just as charming as the males," the Doctor laughed weakly, "Right. I'll see if I can dig up any more information."

"Thanks Monique," The Colonel started quickly toward the detention center, radioing in another four men along the way.

.o0o.

**Cain laughed and took a deep breath before visibly calming himself, "The others have no need. I use my mind to make up for what my body lacks. Did you not see them on your..." Cain searched for a moment through the queen's mind for the term, "Hive ship? Well if not you will be able to see them again when they get here."**

"I did not see anything," she stopped, a fury building inside of her, "I was…overwhelmed when my Hive was destroyed," her head spun as she remembered the moment when her world dropped out from under her. She had been aware of everyone, and had even been linked with the organic structure of the ship itself. To have it all stripped away in an instant would have been too much for a weaker mind, "I awoke in the hands of the humans."

The Queen realized that the Agi before her was in some way responsible for the death of her crew, and the destruction of her Hive. The thought grounded her, and all of the fury and frustration of the past several hours bubbled to the surface, "Agi…let them come!" She shouted, her eyes wild as she stood quivering with rage.

.o0o.

**The four men met her before she had gotten very far and they had Dr. MacKenzie in tow.**

"**Colonel I know your busy but I think there's something you ought to know," the Doctors accent was thick with strain. "I've been goin o'er the samples you brought back from the hive ship, as well as the prisoner's blood and tissue. First, the blood from the strange ones is not even a double helix. And secondly the prisoner's samples contain none of the antibodies for any human diseases, not even any of the ones we find among the various indigenous populations we've discovered."**

"**So what? We may be able to use disease warfare against these Agi?" The Colonel wasn't really paying attention to what the Scottish doctor was saying, being far more concerned with keeping any more of her people from dieing.**

**Kenna shook her head, "No, I don'na think so. Assuming that the…Agi are the Wraith's attackers I highly doubt that anything we could cook up would affect them without a better understanding of their physiology."**

"**Then I really don't see why you're telling me this Doc, I have work to do."**

"**Sam." MacKenzie stepped in front of Colonel Aaren stopping her just in front of the detention wing doors, "You're not listening to me. I think there's a very good chance that we may be the first humans this boy has ever seen."**

Colonel Aaren stopped short, her expression shocked. Then she looked resolute, "if that's the case, then we need to learn more from him than we thought."

A fierce shout came from within the detention center. The Marines all exchanged glances and shifted uncomfortably, glad that the Wraith was contained, but unsure if they really wanted to even enter the room.

The Colonel nodded once to the Doctor, then slid her hand over the door panel and stepped inside. To her right, the Wraith was staring daggers at the Agi, and it looked as though the shield were the only thing that was allowing the young man to go on living. To the left, the Agi was watching the Wraith calmly, a look of mild amusement on his features as she snarled at him.

"**What might be going on in here?" the Colonel sounded almost amused herself.**

**Cain ignored her, not letting the humans in the room in on the conversation, "Yes we killed you. And you killed us. My ship is just as dead as yours. The difference is, the rest of the flotilla comes for me, you will still be in that box and unable to do anything. As the human leader said, why should I fear you?"**

**The colonel frowned, "I asked a question, what the Hell is going on in here?" Her breath blew white. The Wraith steamed. For a moment nobody moved.**

**Later it would take film analysis to see if the Queen moved first or the marines fired first but in the end the result was the same.**

**The Colonel looked back at the marines, "Lieutenant?'**

**Bradshaw shivered slightly in the cold, "Like you say Sir. When it comes to the Wraith, 'When in doubt, stun them out."**

Doctor MacKenzie poked her head around the door, "is it safe tae come in?"

The Colonel waved her in. The short Doctor entered quickly, eyeing the wraith that lay in a heap in the cell floor, where a thin sheet of ice was forming from the recent cleaning, "You shouldn't keep doing that to her…we don't know how much she can take," she moved quickly, opening the cage and neatly drawing two vials of blood from the Unconscious Queen's forearm, "Aye, she's fed recently, but judging by the state she was in when she arrived, her internal wounds likely aren't healed yet, and I can assure you she'll need more before she's feeling well."

"Hurry it up Doc."

As the door slid shut and the shield reactivated, the young Queen began to stir. She moved slowly, sitting up and looking around for a moment, her eyes slightly unfocused. A moment later she stood, her eyes hard as glass as she glared at the visitors before turning her back on them and remaining silent. Had it been any other creature, in any other context, such a motion could be described as a sulk. In this case, it was a dismissal.

The Colonel turned to her Agi captive, "What did you do to get her that upset? I've never seen one so pissed off…I'll admit, I'm impressed."

**Cain shrugged, "She figured out that my people destroyed her Hive. Apparently that upset her." Cain crossed to the very edge of his containment, "Colonel Samantha Susan Aaren, British Special Air Service, security code nine five tango tango delta six. Your mind burns with worry and curiosity. What do you want from me? And what is a tango?"**

The Colonel blinked, her tone guarded when she answered, "I…want to understand. I want to learn about you, where you come from, how it is that you do what you do. How did you destroy two Hives so easily?" She shook her head, confusion, curiosity, and a little fear of the great unknown mixing to make her feel a bit jittery. She laughed, it had a little edge to it, "Tango is a name we've given to the letter "T" when we're working with radios…it can't be mistaken for anything else."

She moved closer, "I've answered one for you, how about you return the favor?"

**Cain cocked his head to one side, "We took them by surprise. My," the word had overtones of a ships captain, a family or clan leader, and the leader of a war band, "said that we only needed one ship to loot. We fired on one, destroying it immediately." Cain looked over the Colonel's shoulder at the wraith queen, including her in understanding what he was saying, "The other we boarded. The Wraith fought well. It was an even match. They all died. We all died. Except for me... and her. The Flotilla will come for the rest. For me. They will not be pleased."**

"Your wounds have been treated, and we have not harmed you. In fact, we'd be glad to give you back, but until then, we need to keep you secure," the Colonel sounded almost apologetic about the last bit.

Her radio clicked, and she excused herself, "Gentlemen, keep guard at the door, if there are any more…disturbances, you know how to handle it."

**Cain's voice lingered in Samantha's head even after she left the room, "If 'secure' keeps me locked in this room, the Whole will not care what you call it. Neither will I."**

A moment later they were alone once again. The Queen seemed calm and collected. She looked very small in the oversized jump suit, her breath appearing in soft clouds before her face. She shivered, the same way the humans had, but refused to acknowledge her discomfort as she stood, still as stone, and listened to the small movements of the Agi behind her.

**He took a deep breath and pulled back the last of his temper and the influence he had been exerting on the rest of the room. Slowly the temperature began to rise back to normal. Cain sat on the floor, his cell being bare of furnishings. For a moment he considered sending out his mind to follow this Colonel and learn of where he was. But he was tired. He had expended a lot of energy to heal himself. So instead he sat, and waited, and hoped these humans that looked so like him were more inclined to remember to feed him than the Agi were when they first adopted him.**

A few minutes later, the door opened and a woman entered with a small cart. "Agi? Is your name Agi?" she fidgeted, glancing over at the still form of the wraith, "I thought you'd like something to eat, and some clean clothes. Once you're finished, we'll see about moving you to more comfortable quarters."

She ran her hand over the field controls, slipping the food under the door slat, along with a neatly folded jump suit and a basin of warm water before quickly re-activating the field.

The room began to return to a normal temperature. The queen relaxed a little, turning to watch the mousy human as the Agi was given supplies. Threats were not working, and the humans were right, short of another spectacular mistake, they had nothing to fear. There was no way she would be able to get out of the cell on her own.

"Human," her multi tonal voice was soft, almost charming.

The attendant turned with a start, having been unaware of the wraith's attention, "Jenny…my name is Jenny."

"Jen-ny," the queen pronounced it as two distinct syllables, and with a smile, "How long are you planning on keeping me here?"

"**I'm just a nurse miss. I work for Doctor MacKenzie. I don't know what the Colonel plans to do with you." Jenny shrugged almost apolitically.**

**Cain had changed clothing with seemingly no modesty or concern for who might be watching, "I know what they plan for you, Wraith." He presented himself at the entrance of his enclosure, and watched as Jenny fumbled with the door controls.**

The Queen's eyes flashed, ground-eating strides bringing her to the door of her cell. Her voice was measured, calm, but had an undertone of mockery, "Oh, I can guess. I imagine your fate will be much kinder. Agi have no history with the humans, and weapons comparable to Wraith. They need you."

**Images flashed through the Queen's mind: her cage, and the human who so generously donated himself to her survival, Cain's voice whispered there as well,**_** Perhaps they are not the only ones.**_

**Even as this happened the Agi turned to Jenny, " My name, is Cain, Jenny Pascall. And yes, I can read your mind as you put it." He gestured at the door and the increasingly nervous looking marines stationed there, "But I believe you were supposed to take me somewhere? More comfortable accommodations?" Cain smiled. To the Wraith Queen, it looked like the smile of the proverbial "cat that had gotten the canary", though neither of the aliens knew that particular phrase. To Jenny the smile was comforting and kind, somebody who knew he could be unnerving and was trying not to be. To the marines the smile looked like that of a predator that had its prey dead-to-rights and so saw no reason not to play with it's food before eating it.**

"Yes," she said, her eyes wide, "If you would come with me?" She turned and led him out of the detention wing, the guards falling in around them. Jenny glanced back as the door was sliding shut to see the Queen standing in the nearest corner of her cell, watching them with her head canted to one side, the very picture of confusion, her hands pressed flat against the field.

She led her small group down the halls, explaining some of the basics of where they were, and pointedly ignoring the uncomfortable glances from the Marines, "The city is called Atlantis, though we are not the ones that built it, it's Ancient made. We're not even the first Earth crew to work here in the Pegasus galaxy. There was another team in another, very similar city to this one, but they have all gone back home. Actually, that makes this Atlantis Base 2, but we just call it Atlantis for simplicity's sake. We arrived in this city almost two years ago, and it is now our home, at least…for the time being. Stop looking at me like that Bradshaw, he's a mind reader…he probably already knows all of this. It can't hurt to be polite."

A moment later, Cain found himself presented with a rather large room with a high ceiling. A bed, couch, small table, and a couple of chairs provided comfortable furnishings. In fact, it could have been considered a rather nice set of quarters, though the observation windows running along the entire top third of the room were a jarring tell. This was not a luxury apartment, just another form of cell.

**Cain stood in the middle of the room and looked around taking in the large furnishings and the observation windows. "It appears a most comfortable cell. Thank you for the consideration, however forced and minimal it may be."**

**Jenny smiled though she was not sure if that was the correct response, "There will be marines outside if you need anything."**

"**I'm sure they will be."**

**.o0o.**

**The night passed swiftly for some, fitfully for others. Samantha dreamed of mind reading security breaches. Malcom dreamed of totally alien cultures to study. Kenna and Monique had almost the same dream- a world where things moved because you wanted them to, and no other reason. For one it was a dream, the other a fun-house nightmare where logic no longer applied. Bradshaw dreamed of pretty girls and tropical beaches. Jenny dreamed of Wraith. The Queen dreamed of turning the tables on her captors, of power, of food.**

**Cain dreamed with all of them. And in the morning he decided he wanted to see what this city, this Atlantis, looked like. And, so he left- the marines snoring softly behind him.**

**.o0o.**

**The queen awoke to a present in her cell, one of the marines was watching as a doctor moved through the door. He carried one of the stolen wraith weapons, and had apparently underestimated how long a blast would keep her out.**

She lashed out, sweeping the marine's legs out from under him. He fell quickly, the stunner firing on the way down. The blue bolt whizzed past her ear as she rolled to a crouch and pinned him, pressing her right hand to his chest as she began to Feed. The nurse screamed and marines poured into the room. The encounter lasted only seconds, ending with one barely alive marine, and one very stunned wraith.

She awoke fifteen minutes later, the hang-over effect of the stunning fading quickly. The Queen felt better than she had since being taken prisoner, and smiled to herself as she took a deep breath and relished her non broken ribs. Today was looking better, and it had only begun.

.o0o.

**Samantha was having a good morning. Despite the dreams of the night before, the stranger was still in his lockup. She'd checked with the guards several times and they had reported no activity. And in spite of the meeting with the senior staff that Dr. Day had called to discuss the Agi and their other new guest, she was still in a good mood.**

**And then her radio clicked. A brief moment for raised eyes and soft swearing, then she clicked it on, "Go."**

"**Sir, We've had another attack in the detention wing. Marconis is in med bay, the attack didn't kill him but I don't think he's what we'd call fit-for-duty anymore."**

Moments later, the door slid open and the Colonel burst into the detention wing, pistol in hand.

The queen stood quickly, her hands spread wide, "Are you to be my executioner?"

"Get against the wall, back to the bars," the Colonel's voice was so cold, that the Wraith blinked in surprise. When the wraith did not move immediately, the Colonel fired a round at her feet, "MOVE."

Unable to do much to defend her self, and not wanting to be shot again, the Queen moved smoothly to the wall, and sat, her back against the field. The field clicked off a moment later, and she felt metal cuffs cinch around her wrists.

**The door to the cell slid open and Colonel Aaren stormed inside.**

"**Now what am I going to do with you? You've killed one of my men and hospitalized another. And you've only been here for a day. I must tell you, if this is what I can expect in the future you're not worth hanging onto." The pistol snapped up and centered between the queen's eyes, "So, what am I going to do with you?"**

"I took what I needed to survive," she said quietly, her eyes focused past the muzzle of the pistol and on the Colonel's face, "I was injured, if I did not Feed, I would not be here right now. While I don't like the idea of being kept in this box until I starve, it's mildly better than being left alone on a wrecked Hive floating dead through space. I know how it hurts to loose men," her gaze hardened for a moment, then she relaxed against the wall, her head leaning back, eyes closed, "trust me."

**Colonel Aaren blinked, "I believe you do. What the Hell happened out there?"**

The Queen stayed quiet for a long moment, eyes closed. When she spoke, her voice was measured, as though she had to detach herself from the meaning of the words to get them out, "I was to meet with the Queen of the larger Hive. We were to make negotiations on an Alliance. I boarded her vessel, and was making my case when I sensed another ship. A moment later my Hive was destroyed. All of my Wraith….died…at once," her eyes opened, focused on the human, willing the Colonel to understand.

"A Queen is connected with her Wraith, and her Hive," she paused a moment, her eyes closing again as she drew a slow breath. Her features set, and she continued, stronger, "The Agi came, and extinguished them in an instant. I woke up here." She curled her lip, exposing fangs as she cast a glance around the room, her yellow green gaze once again settling on the Colonel, "I don't know how I came to be injured, and you know the rest."

**Samantha nodded slowly trying to decide whether or not she really wanted to be empathizing with this creature, and carefully not examining weather or not she had a choice. "You eat one more of my men, and I shoot you. No questions, no explanations. Just bang, goodnight. You get me?"**

The Wraith looked at the Colonel for a moment, her face unreadable, then a small smile quirked the corner of her mouth, "I get you. But eventually I will need to Feed, surely you must understand that? All things need to eat. I have no hibernation pod here, I cannot Sleep through your lifetime."

**The Colonel's radio clicked for her attention again, she was really beginning to hate that thing. For the moment she ignored it and focused on the Wraith in front of her, "Yeah well, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. Until then, no more eating, no more problems." And she turned and stormed out.**

**.o0o.**

**Kenna MacKenzie and Monique Russell were deep in argument over the viability of psychic powers, leaving Malcom Day to stare at the empty seat where Samantha should have been and cursing the five minutes of inattentiveness that had removed him from his dig in South America and landed him behind a desk; a desk that had eventually landed him here, trying to ride hard on geniuses and military officers. **

**It was the silence that snapped him out of his reverie. Nothing got Dr. Russell to shut-up except victory or the total derailment of her mental juggernaut. Looking up he discovered it was in fact option two. As somehow the man who was supposed to be in lock up was standing in their conference room examining the view from their windows.**

**Day shook himself and started half out of his chair, his mind busily trying to decide if it was an anthropologist or administrator that day. In the board room the administrator won out.**

"**What are you doing here?" Day tried to sound furious but the best he could manage was confused.**

"**Haggling." Their strange, supposed prisoner replied without turning from the window.**

"**Haggling... Over what? With who?"**

"**With you, and Colonel Aaren. Though she seems to be absent."**

"**What are... what?" Day was losing his train of thought. There was just something about the man that was distracting.**

"**Your proposal was that you lock me away with no regard for my wishes. My counter is that I go where I want with no regard for your wishes." Cain turned away from the windows, "Are you unfamiliar with haggling?"**

"Of course I know about haggling," Day frowned, "But how did you get here? Look on the monitor…there are four men outside your door."

Dr. Russell turned to Cain, held up a scanner, and pressed the button. Her face fell when no internal power sources were detected, and she turned and immediately started working her next theory up on her tablet computer.

**Cain stared at Dr. Russell for a moment, then seemed to be suppressing laughter and only partially succeeding. Fortunately the good doctor was so engrossed with her new project that she was the only one in the room to miss Cain's attempt at politeness.**

**Getting himself back under control he focused himself back on Dr. Day, "Their minds are weaker than mine. They saw what I wished them to see. You may be able to kill me Malcom Day, but you cannot hold me." Cain's eyes unfocused for a moment then he snapped back to the here and now, "I should leave you to your meeting. If you're looking for Samantha, she's in the detention wing, threatening... and sympathizing with the Wraith. But she's about done now so if you call her she will come." Cain gave a peculiar sort of gesture that gave all the impressions of a bow without ever actually compromising his center of balance, and vanished out the door that he had presumably used to gain access to Day's office.**

Dr. Day looked out the door where his "prisoner" had gone, his face perplexed. Then he activated his radio, "Jenny, I need you in my office, now. Colonel Aaren, when you are done in the detention center, join us in the meeting that started five minutes ago…there have been some interesting developments."

**A few moments later Samantha dragged Jenny into the meeting room, "I found this outside, somebody want to tell me what's going on?"**

**Day looked up, "That's what I'd like to know Colonel. I just had a visit from the prisoner that you assured me was secure. How did that happen Colonel?"**

**Samantha blanched, having flashbacks to the nightmares of the previous evenings, "The Agi? He was here?"**

"**Cain." Both of the senior staff members stared at the young nurse who shrank slightly into her own skin.**

"**Excuse me?" Day leaned forward looking vaguely predatory.**

"**His name. It's Cain." **

**Day smiled, this might work even better than he thought it would.**

"You've been talking with him?" Samantha asked, her mind working furiously as she thought of the telepath in the same room as Day. The security and intelligence risks compounded in her head made her feel a little weak in the knees.

"Well…yeah. He's not that bad," she looked down at her shoes for a moment, feeling very small under the eyes of her superiors, "He, uh, he's glad to have a better room. I don't blame him; the prison area isn't exactly friendly. Not- not that it's supposed to be!" She blushed scarlet, absently tugging her long brown braid that had fallen in front of her shoulder.

"Are you on friendly terms with him?" Dr. Day asked politely, trying not to sound too eager.

"Friendly enough I suppose. Why Sir?"

"I have an assignment for you…"

"**That's all fine and good," Samantha was beginning to look a bit panicky, "But where is the… Where is Cain now?"**

**.o0o.**

**Cain walked back in to the detention wing. He had been all over the tower, examined the living spaces, and spent several hours watching the so-called Stargate. The people going in and out were very serious. They came back from many places. They were worried, about the Wraith, about someplace called Earth. And now he wanted to talk to somebody with some perspective, somebody who knew more about this place, somebody like Queenie the Wraith. So he stood before her cage as she sat and rested.**

"**They are afraid of you. You are locked in here and cannot harm them, but they are afraid of you. Or the concept of you."**

"Cain," she remained seated, her eyes closed, "you came to visit me. I'm flattered. Doing well with the humans?"

**Cain glanced around then sat down on the floor. "Well enough. They put me in a nicer cage. Yourself?"**

She quirked a brow ridge at him and cracked open one eye, "Apparently not a very good cage. Do they know you're here with me?" She inclined her head to the security camera in the corner.

**Cain glanced up at it, "If they don't know now they will soon. I could disable it but that would be just as obvious. I imagine they will have some things to say to me." he shrugged.**

She threw back her head and laughed, "Indeed," she stood and approached the wall, "Well then, we may not have much time. I don't think they fear me at the moment, as I can't get out. They fear Wraith. They fear us because they know that if we get to their home planet, their Earth, that there is nothing they will be able to do to stop us."

**Cain cocked his head to one side, "Could they not just leave? The histories tell us that our home world was destroyed in a great war. We simply moved on."**

"From what I understand, they aren't the kind of culture that would just leave. But even if they did, who knows what else might be on neighboring planets?" her eyes looked far away for a moment, a small smile playing about her lips.

"There you are!" Jenny entered the brig, "You're a hard man to follow. Oh, sorry. Dr. Day has assigned me to keep you company during your stay in Atlantis."

**Cain blinked, "He what?" his voice was dead-pan, the wraith chuckled, "Oh yes, very amusing." Cain turned and examined the girl again then sighed and muttered to him self, "So negotiations continue."**

"I'm sorry, I don't understand you," Jenny said, reading his tone, and knowing she wasn't really welcome. She smiled weakly, looking to the wraith, "Can you understand him?"

The Queen quirked a brow ridge, "I seem to understand what he wants me to."

**Cain sighed and for a moment felt a little guilty. When he spoke again he was understood by all, "Well, pull up a patch of floor. We are having a discussion on why humans are afraid of Wraiths. And how that relates to our," Cain gestured to indicate the wraith and himself, "current position."**

Jenny nodded, and sat cross-legged on the floor, "This should be interesting."

The Queen turned to Jenny, "I was telling him that you humans fear Wraith because you are our prey. You Atlantis humans fear us especially because you are from a far richer feeding ground, and it's only a matter of time before we find out how to get there." There was no threat in her words, just simple fact. It would happen, and the Wraith were a patient race.

**Jenny nodded, "Sounds about right."**

"**Which leads to why you are so interested in me, because my people can face the Wraith on equal terms. But we will see both the Wraith and the humans of Atlantis as our prey, though we look for very different reasons than the Wraith." Cain looked thoughtful as he spoke in similar tones as the queen.**

**Jenny marveled at the conversation that she was having with two people talking quite calmly about destroying both her and each other, with no malice or ire.**

She briefly wondered where the video feed would end up, and what sort of debriefing she would have to go through after being witness to this conversation.

"And what is it that you seek?" the Queen growled, "What was it that you wanted so dearly to necessitate the killing of my Hive?"

**Cain looked at the queen for a moment, "What necessitated the destruction of your hive was good tactics. There were two of you and one of us. We could not take both. Both ships looked the same, so we picked one to kill and one to loot. That is what we were after, the ship, the technology we had not seen before. Things we can sell to those not worth attacking."**

"So your people are basically space Vikings? Interesting. Where do you come from?" Jenny asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

The Queen hissed, and began pacing in her cell. Part of her was absolutely furious that her Hive had died for such an inane reason; the other part was thankful that they had chosen her Hive, or both Queens would now be dead. While her High Commander was quite capable, her Hive would not do well without a Queen.

**For the moment Cain chose to ignore the fuming Queen, she was having difficulty reconciling her own feelings about the death of her hive. Apparently her religion did not prepare her for death as a part of existence. Cain didn't particularly want to go digging for more information, so he chose instead to address the human. He frowned as he went looking for the meanings behind her words and what he found caused him to jerk back slightly at the cartoony, disproportionate and overly hairy men that were apparently these Vikings.**

"**We are not vikings. We are Agi. The difference should be obvious. And we come from the Flotilla. The Flotilla comes from... nowhere that exists any more."**

Jenny looked at the Agi carefully. He was not what she imagined a Viking would be at all. That being said, he did look like he wasn't afraid to fight, and that he'd take whatever he needed without much thought to consequence. So, in a way, the Viking motif still fit, "What was it like?" she asked, referring to his home world.

The Queen stopped pacing, her posture stiff as she found herself relating to Cain. Both of them came from homes that no longer existed. She sat, smoothing down the jump suit with a small frown. The sleeves just wouldn't stay rolled up. She started to re-cuff them, then reached up to the shoulder and tore the sleeve from the offending garment. She made short work of the other as well.

"**The planet of our origin was destroyed long before my time. We are taught to mourn it in concept, a Whole that has passed. But death is part of life. As for the planet itself... it was much like any other world. It had plains and deserts, forests, jungles, mountains. It had its harsh seasons and its gentle ones. Now the only part of it that remains is in the Flotilla Heart, and the memories of those now gone."**

**Cain paused as his eyes unfocussed and he seemed to be elsewhere for a moment. Then he smiled and looked up at the room's security camera. "You just won Dr. Russell a small amount for violence to your dress."**

**.o0o.**

**In the conference room Kenna paused in passing Monique her money, as Cain's eyes almost seemed to meet hers through the monitor. "How does he do that? I've got to get him in for a cat scan."**

**Monique snatched the money from Kenna's hand, "It's some sort of remote wireless method of hacking into the security feed." She glared at Dr. MacKenzie as if daring her to say otherwise.**

**Samantha almost sobbed, "Can we please focus for two minutes on what we're going to do with the two of them, without getting distracted by how-he-does-whatever-it-is that-both-of-you-agree-is-happening, whatever the method? Please? Just two minutes?"**

"**There's no security feed in this room Monique, hacking it wouldn't tell him what's happening in here. I'm adding remote viewing to the list of demonstrated powers." Kenna bent over her tablet and started making notes.**

**Samantha looked to Malcom with an air of desperation, "Sir, I'd like to renew my request to shoot both of them."**

"**He could be hacking into some Ancient security system that we aren't aware of and don't understand yet." Monique insisted stubbornly.**

"**Please Sir!" Samantha halfheartedly begged.**

**None of them were paying enough attention to see that on the monitor Cain seemed to be almost dieing of laughter.**

**.o0o.**

Jenny couldn't help but smile as her charge doubled over in laughter, his face red as he fought to regain his breath. She didn't fully understand what was so funny, but even the implication that the folks in the control tower had had a pool going in regards to the lifespan of the jumpsuit was enough to make her chuckle.

The Queen pulled the last few loose threads, pointedly ignoring her two laughing companions as Cain regained control, stood upright and wiped his eyes with the back of a hand.

.o0o.

In the control tower, alarms went off and one of the scientists turned toward Dr. Day's office and announced, "Incoming Wormhole, we have a Stargate Command IDC."

**Day nodded, "Drop the shield. Do we have transmission or incoming?"**

"**Looks like incoming," the tech replied.**

**Day sighed, "We're going to have to call this meeting short. Ladies?" He gestured at the door that let him back into the control room and his underlings followed him out. The area in front of the gate was busy as new techs, soldiers, and equipment quickly piling up to be sorted. Standing in front of them however was a man that made Day glad of his professional mask. The Doctor could almost feel Samantha snap to attention behind him, as her immediate superior General Nathan Morden climbed the steps to greet them. **

**It wasn't that General Morden was a bad person; he was just the original security hard-ass at the forefront of the new and disturbingly fast growing US Imperialism movement, and utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling subtlety. He believed in a sort of modern manifest destiny, that the Stargate had been placed on Earth solely for the benefit of the United States, and anything on the other side was a piñata and should be hit until the candy came out. And of course they would emerge victorious because God was on their side.**

**One would call him delusional if not for the fact that he was one of the modern worlds great tactical geniuses and all of his attitudes had been remarkably successful so far... at least in the absence of public opinion.**

"General Mordan, welcome to Atlantis. I trust your trip was pleasant?" Dr. Day held out his hand in greeting.

The General nodded to both Dr. Day and Colonel Aaren, briefly clasping hands with the doctor, "I read in your last report that you have a female Wraith and a very strange human. You can brief me along the way."

With that the General strode past them and headed down the hall toward the detention wing.

A speaker crackled to life in the detention wing, and Dr. Russell's voice came through in a hushed tone, "Jenny, you have incoming. I repeat, General Mordan is on his way…if you can get Cain back into his cell that would likely be best. He just left the tower, you have thirty seconds or so until he gets there."

**Jenny made a face and turned to Cain, "Well you heard the Doctor, lets go!"**

**Cain blinked at her, "What did the speaker say?"**

**Everybody in the room paused, "You couldn't understand that? But you understand what I say!"**

"**Words give shape to thoughts. Your thoughts I understand, the meaning, the intention behind your words. Not the words themselves. No meaning, no mind for me to look into, no understanding. Now what did she say?"**

"**I'll explain later, for now we have to..." Jenny trailed off as the door to the detention wing opened and there stood the command staff with General Morden.**

Jenny thought really hard about Cain walking back into his cell, and hoped he'd catch on as she turned to the General, "General, what a surprise…"

"Why is he out here?"

"Sir?"

The Queen stood in the nearest corner of her cell, hands loosely clasped behind her back, amusement plain on her features as she watched the General's glare switch back and forth between Cain and Jenny.

**General Morden was furious, what exactly this boy was capable of was unclear, but having any prisoner, especially one as uncooperative as this one had been, out of a cage sent exactly the wrong message.**

"**Colonel, why is the prisoner out of its cage?"**

Colonel Aaren swallowed hard before replying, "Sir, the prisoner, Cain, is part of a people who have technology enough to take out Wraith Hive ships without much trouble. I thought that he would be a better ally than a prisoner. He has been moved into one of the furnished observation chambers, and Miss Pascall here is to accompany him at all times."

**The General rounded on the Colonel, "Has he made any overtures of alliance with us? Has he given us any of the miracle technology, has he even explained what it is he does or how he does it? No! We reward cooperation. Not threats. Which according to your reports is all he's given us. Lieutenant!"**

**Bradshaw snapped to attention, "Sir!"**

"**Secure the prisoner! Now!"**

**Cain tensed. His mind expanded explosively, and he became aware of everything around him. He knew that the General had forgotten to turn off the stove before he left Earth. He knew what Jenny missed most in the world was her cat, and she didn't miss her bully of an older brother at all. He saw where everybody was within ten floors of him in every direction. Everything in the room moved with just a slight almost imperceptible resistance as his mind lay itself like a blanket ready to tense and exert its force. His mind continued to expand until he found the mind of one of the new workers who had come over from Earth. And he relaxed.**

**Bradshaw had begun to pull his side arm to enforce the General's order, no matter how pointless he thought it was, or how much he disagreed with it. The rest of the marines followed suit. Then Cain raised a hand stopping all of them in their tracks, and smiled like he knew something that they did not.**

"**Relax Lieutenant John Bradshaw. I will go willingly."**

Cain walked calmly into "his" cell across from the Queen, and Bradshaw activated the field.

The General rounded on Colonel Aaren, jerking a thumb toward the Queen who stood calmly, "You planning on letting her out as well?"

Aaren stood, stone faced as she stared straight ahead, holding her tongue.

The Queen curled her lip, "I imagine I will be here as long as the Colonel wishes to keep me…Sir."

**The General snorted, "You'll be here until I decide to let you out. Now you'll answer some questions for me, or I'll wring the answers out of you."**

**The Colonel standing behind the general kept up an admirable stone face but the Wraith could feel her fury at the General radiating from her, so clearly... in fact it was much clearer than normal.**

_**Do not respond to my voice.**_** It was Cain as clear as if he was standing next to her, **_**The General doesn't know everything he should about the people he brought with him. If you play along, I think I can get us both out of these cages.**_

The Queen went very still, her eyes locked on the General as she thought about what Cain's words could mean. _If I tell him everything he wants to know with no trouble, he will not believe me, _she thought, projecting the words as though she were communicating with her Hive.

The moment stretched on, the Wraith staring at the General, seeming to weigh her options. Then the Queen yawned hugely.

**Cain smiled, at the Queen's actions but the General was significantly less amused. He went perfectly still and smiled completely without humor.**

"**It is in your best interests to cooperate. I know sedatives and paralytics work on your kind. I will not hesitate to use them and any other persuasive means I can come up with in order to make you talk."**

_**No he will not believe you. He will believe you are telling lies. But I need you here, and thinking clearly if this is going to work. Tell him something, keep him busy until our prey makes its move.**_

The Queen nodded slightly, acknowledging Cain's request, and at the same time appearing to give slightly to the General's threat. She walked forward until she was standing as close to the wall as she could without touching it, her eyes locked on the taller man, "Let us dispense with the posturing, General," she purred, "We both know that you are well within your power to do whatever you like to me. The laws that govern you at home do not apply to Wraith. At the end of this you are planning to kill me. So where's my incentive? I reward cooperation, not threats," she spit his words back at him with a smile, her tone steel wrapped in velvet.

**.o0o.**

**Elsewhere in the city was Brian. Brian, on paper, was a supremely boring individual. He didn't graduate at the top or the bottom of his class. He didn't have an abusive home. He was just good enough to get the job done and had a talent for keeping his mouth shut, and even that wasn't really pertinent as the only people he could talk to were already cleared for anything he could give away. All in all the most significant risk Brian posed to anybody was that they might fall asleep while reading his jacket. At least on paper.**

**Off of paper Brian was actually very well trained. He was one of fifty members of the Foreign World Liberation Army, or FWLA, that had managed to sneak aboard this... space station or what ever it was. **

**Supposedly, he was an environmental tech. This allowed him and the other four people with similar covers the perfect opportunity to plant viral bombs all throughout the ventilation system.**

**.o0o.**

**The General gritted his teeth, "Your incentive, is that I just kill you instead of torturing you to death or simply letting you starve."**

Colonel Aaren braced herself for an explosion from the wraith and a long afternoon of unpleasantness. Jenny slipped out of the detention center, scurrying back to the med bay as quickly as she could, she did not want to see what the General had in store.

Instead of exploding, the Queen's tone was guarded, wary "What do you want to know?" She was visibly sizing-up the man before her, deciding how much clout his threats actually held.

"**I want to know how many Wraith ships there are. I want to know their capabilities, weaknesses, and locations. I want to know how many Wraith there are on each ship. I want to know everything."**

She gave him a flat look, remaining silent for a long moment. When she felt he was about to speak again, she cut him off, "Our numbers have grown in the past year, I cannot guess as to how many complete Hives are currently active."

**The General growled, "You are trying my patience. If you don't know for certain, guess. You knew last year give me those numbers. I give you one more chance."**

**In the other cell across from the queen, where nobody was looking, Cain smiled.**

_**Soon**_**.**

"Last year we had at least seventy five ships in our Alliance. There were more in other factions."

Colonel Aaren drew in a breath, surprised that there were so many active Hives. And if that were only part of the population…

The General began to speak and she cut him off again, "Before you continue to threaten me, I must tell you I cannot guess what I do not know. The other factions were beyond the reach of my mind. I could make something up for you, if it would make you feel better about this interrogation."

"**What would make me feel good about the interrogation is you telling me what you do know. How many Wraith are on one of these hive ships."**

"My Hive contained nearly eight hundred," her eyes flashed dangerously, "We still had room to grow," she turned, her face unreadable as she tried to pull some surface information from both the General and the Colonel. She started to pace and caught herself, then turned, deliberately speaking past the General and addressing the Colonel.

"Colonel Aaren, when you look at a building back in…Lon-don can you tell how many people are inside? If you were to…call the person in charge, could speaking with them allow you to know how many people were present at a given time?"

**The Colonel opened her mouth to answer but the General cut her off, "You are having this conversation with me. Not the Colonel. A military ship is not the same thing as a civilian office building. Since you seem to be unwilling I will, with some enjoyment I might add, resort to persuasion." The general nodded to one of the soldiers that had come with him who immediately snapped his rifle to his chest; a rifle with an oddly large boor size. "Turn off the field."**

One of the Atlantis marines dropped the field, his movements quick as he stepped back out of Wraith reach.

_I've stalled him as long as I can,_ the Queen projected as she leaned forward slightly, lightly balancing on the balls of her bare feet, ready to fight should the opportunity present itself.

_**Then this is going to be unpleasant.**_** Cain grimaced**_**. I hope it doesn't take them too much longer.**_

**The general gestured at the over-sized rifle, "These darts are filled with a synthetic chemical. In its current state it's completely inert. In a moment my man here is going to fire. When the chemical in the dart interacts with the oxygen in your blood stream, it will become a thermocaustic. In other words, the combination of your body heat and blood-oxygen will cause it to eat through your veins. Now a human would melt from a single dose of this. I'm told your somewhat tougher than us, so we have a betting pool as to how long it will take for you to go. Fire when ready."**

**There was a soft hiss and a thump as the dart hit. Cain winced and the rest of the room held its breath.**

She stared at the dart protruding from her chest, the moment stretching on impossibly long. Then the fire began to spread. It burned like nothing she had ever encountered before, the pain bringing her to her knees. Her breath hissed through clenched teeth as she doubled over.

The Queen was still for several heartbeats, her breathing shallow. If she had been human, she would have been dead within the first few seconds.

Colonel Aaren found herself holding her breath, hoping that the General had not just killed her prisoner. There was a lot she could still learn from the Queen. Why was she so still? A low, dry hissing sound escaped the Queen, and the Colonel's skin began to crawl when realized what she was hearing: laughter.

The Queen's head snapped up, her pupils hugely dilated as she snarled, lashing out with her mind and bringing the General to his knees. She stood, deliberately keeping him lower than her as she tore the dart from her chest and tossed it aside. She was in horrible pain, but she hid it well as she drew herself up to her full height. It would have been easy to simply slip away into oblivion, but she could feel the effects of the dart lessening by the moment. Darkness threatened the edges of her vision, and she let go of her hold on the General.

**The General coughed for a moment then rose back to his feet looking remarkably unperturbed if a little short of breath, "If she does that again. Pump three into her. If that doesn't melt her... shoot her until it does. Now are we feeling more cooperative? I can repeat the questions if you like?"**

**.o0o.**

**Brian was leaning against a railing, pretending to listen to the female marine that had been assigned to show him around and make sure he didn't wander into anywhere he wasn't supposed to be. At the moment she was looking out over the view, and so didn't notice him check his watch again, then reach under his over sized pull-over hoodie and pull out the gun and the gas mask.**

"**I'm sorry Corporal Watcher."**

"**I told you to call me Emily..." What ever else she might have been about to say got cut off as Brian shot her.**

**He pulled on his gas mask, pulled out his remote detonator, and pushed the button. For a moment nothing seemed to happen. The effect was quiet but effective as the air system pumped the viral agent around the facility people dropped in their tracks. A few moments later the power all over the station cut out. Brian sighed, time to address his new prisoners.**

"**We are the Foreign World Liberation Army. We have taken control of this facility. Any area that's part of the central air system has been disabled. Which means if you are hearing this you are in either the medical bay or the detention wing. We advise you not to leave or open the door, as doing so would let the virus in. We have also cut power, your automated defenses have been rendered useless. You are cut out of your own systems. If you do not provide us with the control passwords to access the Stargate systems one of several Naquada bombs that have been planted throughout this facility will be detonated. If you wait too long to give us these passwords the virus will kill all those exposed. We await your communications. You have three hours."**

**In the darkness of the detention wing, Cain laughed.**

Lack of light was not a problem for the Queen. The shapes of the soldiers stood out hotly in her blue scale vision as she moved silently to the side, off line of the soldier with the dart gun.

Colonel Aaren reached into her pocket and pulled a glow stick. She cracked it, bathing the area in green chemical light as she looked to her superior, "What now Sir?"

Remembering Cain's earlier trouble with the speaker system, the Queen projected the words as though she were communicating to the Hive, assuming that he would be able to hear her. She finished quickly, slipping into the darkness of the back corner of her cell, beyond the range of the chemical light. Her eyes shone in the darkness, their soft blue light the only thing that gave way that there was anyone in the cell. The fire continued to fade, _what now? _she projected, unconsciously echoing the words of the Colonel.

_**Now we wait for a moment then I make my pitch.**_

**The general spent the next several minuets along with the rest of the staff trying to raise somebody, anybody, anywhere else in the city. Nobody responded.**

"**You have a problem general. You can't go outside. You can't retake your city. You can't give into their demands. You can't let all your people die." Cain spoke softly he was sitting cross legged on the floor his fingers steepled in front of his face. He spoke with authority, his was the tone of a man in control. "You really only have one option. General."**

"**Does it involve shooting you?" the general growled.**

"**No. It involves letting us go, and allowing us to solve this little insurrection for you."**

The Queen closed her eyes, allowing the darkness to hide her completely, listening as Cain made a bid for their freedom.

**The General stared at Cain as though some sort of foreign species he had never seen before, which as far as Cain was concerned, he was.**

**He could hear the Colonel's mind running in circles, about how the General was never going to go for this. About how this was probably their best shot for survival and the hide-bound reactionary moron was going to get them all killed. About...**

"**What do you think of the idea Colonel?" **

**Cain smiled at the delightful screeching sound the Colonel's mind made when it ground to a halt with the general's question.**

Colonel Aaren cleared her throat, gathering her thoughts quickly, "Well Sir, tactically, what he says makes sense. If the virus is engineered to hurt humans, we're pretty much stuck here and at their mercy. Doctor MacKenzie said that Cain here looks human, but is made differently. It's likely he wouldn't be affected, and I doubt that they engineered this for Wraith," _as there aren't Wraith on Earth, and your incompetence brought in an Earth team of terrorists who may have just killed most of my city, "_Cain spent the afternoon around the city, and we had no incidences. He looks a bit of a scrapper, I think he could help us out."

"And the Wraith? You aren't about to propose we let it out?" the General's growl was unmistakable.

Aaren looked to the darkness in the back of the Queen's cage, and for a moment she saw the glint of a savage smile.

"**There are fifty terrorists in this city. If you think I can kill that many alone I am flattered- but I can't. I'll need her help. Of course, you could choose to leave us in here. In which case you will all die, and I'll break myself out- maybe the Wraith too. I'll hand this city, all its records, and the Stargate over to my people. Maybe we'll cut a deal with the Wraith for the coordinates of Earth in exchange for their technology. What do you think my Queen, that sound like something that might interest your people?"**

"Indeed," she breathed, seeming to materialize from the darkness as she stepped forward, "There are many Wraith who would give everything to get to the new Feeding Grounds. The Primary would be a fool to ignore an offer like that."

"Fifty? General, how many came though in your team?" Colonel Aaren barely managed to disguise the shock in her voice.

"We are not having this conversation," Mordan snapped.

**The General paced back and forth in the detention wing, considering his options. "Fine, let them out. If either one of those... people, tries anything other than leaving the wing. Shoot them until they stop moving." The General paused then pointed at the Wraith, "That one gets the dart gun. Let them out."**

**Cain smiled, stood and stretched, then pushed open the door to his own cell before anybody else could reach it, and extended his arm to the Queen in a remarkably Earth-like gesture. "The good general has offered you a meal to make up for injuring you. Shall we go and get it?"**

She stepped out of the cell, closing her eyes briefly as she passed the threshold. The Queen growled softly, nodding as she stepped past Cain. She stopped on front of the General, close enough to touch him, her hands held low by her sides. She looked him up and down, wanting nothing more than to tear the man before her limb from limb. Instead, she paused, pinning him with her gaze, somehow giving the impression that she was looking down on him despite his standing half a head taller. She then deliberately turned her back on him, and strode to the door.

**Cain paused on the threshold looking down on at his arm then over at Colonel Araen, "Am I not doing the gesture right?"**

**The Colonel frowned, "Why would you assume that I know how to offer a lady an arm? It's not something I have a lot of experience with."**

_**Because you were imagining me, or somebody very much like me offering you an arm like this earlier today.**_** Cain laughed and followed the Wraith Queen out.**

The door sealed shut behind them, leaving the Wraith and the Agi alone in the blackness of the hall. She turned to him, her eyes shining in the dark, "Thank you," she said quietly, "I won't forget this."

Then she closed her eyes, reaching out with her senses, feeling the life force of the terrorists a floor above them, "This way," she turned, her bare feet silent as she trotted quickly down the hall.

**Cain didn't move, his own eye's closed, "You go on ahead. There's somebody else I have to see. I'll catch up." **

She nodded then rounded the corner, padding up a staircase as she drew closer to her prey.

The Queen crouched low in the darkness of the stairs, watching the men as they moved restlessly around the room. Her hunger burned almost as badly as the fire from the dart had, her need to feed and regain the strength she had lost was just on the edge of control. She flexed her right hand, the feeding slit opening with anticipation. She counted six in the room, and their nervous energy was intoxicating. They knew they were in charge, and everything was going well, but that did not change the fact that the strange masks they wore were all that kept them from their own virus.

They moved in pairs, taking circuits of the Gateroom, checking each corridor as they passed. She waited until one pair was right in front of her, then reached out and brushed their minds. They saw a wisp, a shadow…something move in the darkness of the stairs, beyond the reach of the weak sunlight that filtered in through the stained glass windows. One looked to the other, then they both stepped closer to check it out.

She grabbed the first one and pinned him against the wall, the breath leaving him from the force of the impact as she started to feed. The second one drew a pistol, but before he was able to fire, the Queen reached over with her free hand and casually stripped the mask from his face. He gasped once, then slumped to the floor.

.o0o.

**Cain watched as the man with the detonator paced back and forth. Every so often he would look at his watch then resume pacing. The Agi walked past the man to the woman on the ground and knelt beside her. She was firmly in the grip of the virus, but it was unlikely that the virus would ever get the chance to kill her; the sucking chest wound would to it first. Cain considered for a moment then lay his hands over the wound.**

**Brian started, and for a moment he tried to determine what had alerted him that something was wrong, he then realized that it was the absence of sound that had attracted his attention. The corporal was no longer wheezing and rattling. He spun and found a man standing over her, he wore no gas mask yet seemed unaffected by the virus. **

**The man looked at Brian and frowned, **_**You are an unpleasant little creature**_**. The words echoed in Brian's head though the man's mouth did not move. **_**Your mind is a disgusting place. I think you should become better acquainted with what's hiding in there**_**. **

**Then the man seemed to twitch and spasm as a huge multi segmented leg ripped it's way out of his side. Followed by another one, and another. In a moment the man was gone and a giant spider scuttled across the deck at him. Brian screamed and started shooting at the spider. He hit it. He could see that he hit it and out of each of those bullet holes thousands of tiny spiders crawled and flooded towards him.**

**Cain watched as the man called Brian thrashed screaming on the ground as his own imagination plagued him with his worst fears made real. Corporal Emily Watcher breathed easy, her bullet wounds closed. Cain left her with the screaming terrorist, there were many more for him to vent his anger upon. Plus, he couldn't let the Wraith Queen have all the fun.**

**.o0o.**

"And that should do it!" Dr. Russell said as she punched in the final key-strokes, then turned her tablet so the others could see the newly reactivated Gateroom security feed. Her companions blanched, and she turned the screen so she could see as well. The Wraith was in the Gateroom, bent over one of the gas masked men. They could see his feet kicking weekly as she fed, then he was still. She jerked as a hole exploded out the back of her left shoulder, followed by another. Her head whipped around and she focused on something beyond the view of the camera.

She stood, another four holes peppering the front of the already bloody jumpsuit as she picked up the remains of the former terrorist and bodily threw him out of sight. The shots stopped.

Doctors Russell and Mackenzie, along with Jenny and another nurse watched in horror as the Queen turned, swayed a bit, then straightened as she ascended the stairs toward the main controls of the city. She went straight for the DHD, sure hands entering a Gate address. She didn't look particularly surprised when the Gate remained dark, and instead turned toward the nearest marine who was slumped over the control panel. She looked at him for a long moment, and the collective audience groaned at the screen, knowing that they were about to witness the death of one of their own.

She reached out, taking the marine by the shoulders and tipping him back in his chair. His arms hung loosely at his sides, his head lolling back and neatly presenting his chest. The Queen appeared to caress the unconscious man, trailing the back of her hand down the side of his face. Then, remarkably, she turned away and raised her hand to the side of her own head, tucking something beneath her hair.

"Who is listening?" A voice that was decidedly not human spoke over the headset, and the Medbay let out a collective breath when they realized that the Queen had been lifting the Marine's radio.

"**This is Doctor Mackenzie, I dun know if those in the holding cells can hear yeh but medlab reads you loud and clear."**

**.o0o.**

**Cain was collecting bodies; mentally commanding them to sleep, throwing swift blows to the back of the head, and telekinetically slamming them in to walls. All very efficient means to render someone unconscious without actually killing them. The Queen had need of food and Cain had a plan to get on everybody's good side.**

.o0o.

There was a brief pause before the radio crackled to life once again, "Colonel Aaren and General Mordan cannot hear us. We had to open the doors to get out. They have been…exposed."

The Queen turned and looked directly into one of the security cameras, "Your Gateroom is clear, where do I go-" she cut off, the video feed showing her staring down at one of the lower halls with an intensity that was startling, even on a wraith.

Monique quickly switched the video feeds, choosing a camera that was placed further back, showing a wide view of both the control platform, and the hall that lead onto the deck in front of the Gate. A moment later a group of men rushed into the room, guns drawn, their postures practically radiating uncertainty. Over the headset, both doctors could hear the Queen breathing lightly as the men passed below her, though she could not be seen from the current camera.

A moment later, the wraith vaulted the railing and dropped nearly twenty feet down to the deck, landing on one of the men. Then the screaming started. Monique shared a grimace with Kenna, glad that the nurses were being spared the sounds of the chaos that they were hearing through the Queen's open mic. One look at their pale faces told the Doctors that the "silent movie" version was already too graphic for them.

**These men, Cain decided, were not incompetent. They actually seemed to be very well trained and any seeming of incompetence had sprung from having no clue really of what they were up against. Cain watched the charge into the Gateroom from his hiding place up against one wall, and watched the Queen descend from where she had hidden herself. It was quickly obvious to anybody who had seen her work-over the others that they had no hope of winning. They had to know this, and if they weren't incompetent... then where... Cain smiled as he found his prey, and the sniper burst into flames.**

She grabbed the nearest human, twisting his arm and bringing him to the ground as the remaining two closed in on her. She was vaguely aware of the sound of a knife leaving a scabbard as she snapped the neck of the one she had forced down. She turned and struck with the heel of her hand, effectively punting the second terrorist away from her.

There was a flash of light accompanied by a wave of heat to her left, and she spun to see a prone human who had burst into flames about the same time she heard the gleeful laughter of Cain. Distracted by the abrupt fire and the presence of her Agi companion, she didn't turn quickly enough to reengage the last terrorist. He struck her from behind, sinking the full seven inches of his combat blade into the space between her shoulder blades. She dropped without a sound, and lay still.

**Cain paused. The queen dropping was unexpected. **

**The last few terrorists stopped for a moment almost unable to believe that the monster in their midst had stopped killing them. They approached cautiously, nervous laughter bubbling up their throats, emerging as full-throated maniacal laughter. They had lived, they were victorious and they had lived! It was then that Ted, the one farthest to the right, caught on fire.**

**Cain leaped the full length of the room borrowing the Wraith Queen's tactics and landed on the second terrorist. He turned as the third raised his knife to stab the new threat only to find Cain's hand in his face. They both froze for a moment then the terrorist slumped to the ground.**

**Cain was breathing hard, he had used a lot of energy during the fight, and now he was contemplating using up the rest of his reserve. He sighed and knelt down next to the Wraith.**

"**If you eat me, I will be very upset." He took a deep breath and Healed the Wraith Queen, then passed out on top of her. Unknowingly imitating the exact pose that the Atlantis station personnel had found them in, in the first place.**

The first thing she was aware of was a weight across her back. The room was silent except for the soft crackling of dying flames. There was no gunfire, there were no shouts. Silence. Then there was a voice, "They're both down… Well I don't know, he just slumped over."

She opened her eyes slowly, spying a long knife covered in black blood laying just to her right. The voices continued to argue in the back of her head, their tones growing more and more anxious. She shifted, and the weight remained solidly across her back. Her wounds were healed, though she did not remember Feeding. She started to rise, feeling the weight slide off to the side. The Agi slipped limply to the floor.

The headset became more persistent, "What's going on out there? Hello? Answer me!"

"I am busy." she snarled into the com through clenched teeth, and was rewarded with a stunned silence.

She looked Cain over, seeing no obvious injuries. She touched him with her mind and found nothing. Frowning, the Queen stood, surveying the area. None of the terrorists in the Gateroom were left standing, so she bent and picked up Cain, lifting him easily despite his greater mass.

"Now you may speak," she said quietly into the com, "Doctor MacKenzie, where are you? Guide me."

A few minutes later, the Queen stood outside the closed infirmary door.

**Kenna and Monique were arguing with the sort of frenetic energy and force of personality that had caused most of the medical staff to retreat to far corners. And as though that were not enough, what they were arguing about was exposing the med bay to the virus outside.**

"**I'm telling you the virus is gone. This isn't Ebola and anything else is going to have died without a host. The risk of air born infection is almost nill," Kenna was speaking in careful modulated tones.**

**Monique on the other hand was almost shouting, "What about other vectors? What about infection from those already infected?"**

"**Well unless these people are completely stupid, which the evidence would suggest that they aren't, it won't be transmittable by other vectors since they only bothered to shield against airborne exposure."**

"**But you can't know."**

"**No I don't, but the only way to help those people out there is to open that door and go out there. Now open it or I'll start experimenting on YOU."**

"Fine fine," Monique backed down, grumbling as she hooked her pad into the door mechanism, "but if we all catch this and die I'm holding you responsible."

The door slid open, revealing the Queen still cradling the unconscious Agi. She walked into the infirmary, scattering the terrified looking nurses and laid Cain down on the nearest open bed. She stepped back, allowing the doctor room to step in and look at her newest patient.

Monique Russell stared open mouthed at the state of the Wraith's jump suit. She hadn't believed it possible for a Wraith to take that much damage and survive. She had no idea how many people the life-sucking alien must have drained to still be up and moving; she gave up counting bullet holes when she got to thirty. The Queen's pacing didn't help at all with the accurate assessment of damage taken.

Deciding it was something that she didn't really want to think about too hard, she turned her attention to the problem at hand,** "Well now what? How do we cure the rest of them?"**

**Kenna frowned, "I don't know... what we need is more time to work on this..." the Doctor smiled in a way that would have made anybody who had worked with her in the UN start worrying, "and I think I know how to get it." She turned to the Wraith, "The enzyme you release before you feed, can you release it without feeding?"**

The Queen stopped pacing and gave the doctor an appraising look, the meaning of her question not lost on the Wraith, "You mean to use the Enzyme to keep your people strong long enough to find a cure?"

"I think it should work, provided that you can produce the enzyme without actually feeding."

The Queen nodded, and took one more look at Cain before exiting the room. She headed back to the prison wing, the dark skinned Atlantis human trailing her.

"You can do it…without feeding…right?" Doctor Russell asked, paling as the Queen shot her a glare.

"With concentration," came the snarled reply.

**The Wraith knelt next to the Colonel and pressed her hand into her chest. A moment later Samantha's back arched, her eyes snapped opened and she gasped, then fell back to the floor. She lay there for a moment, simply dazed. **

**Later Doctor Russell would insist that she could pinpoint the exact moment when the Colonel realized that there was a Wraith with a hand to her chest. The Colonel's eyes widened as she slipped out from under the hand, twisted her arm up behind the Queen, and pushed her attacker's head down to the ground. A moment after that, the rest of the Colonel's brain caught up and she realized that this was her Wraith, she wasn't any older, and in fact felt better than she had... possibly ever. She got up looking slightly embarrassed, "Um, sorry about that."**

The Queen righted herself, wiping the back of a hand across her mouth where a fang had split her lip, her face unreadable as she reassessed the Colonel. The female was definitely well appointed as a leader to her people, and both stronger and faster than she looked. The Queen could see that the enzyme had worked as the doctor had hoped, for that the woman in front of her was absolutely brimming with life.

A brief smile flashed across the wraith's features, exposing way too many fangs, "I would have done the same were our positions reversed." With that, she turned and quit the room.

**The Colonel blinked, "Hold up, we've got more in here that need... treatment."**

The Queen stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder at the General who lay on the floor. She curled her lip, scorn written plainly on her features, "There is only one thing I would do to that one, and then you'll shoot me," green eyes flicked downward to her many holed jump suit before resettling on the Colonel, "I'm done being shot."

**One of the colonel's eyebrows arched, "I'm glad to hear that. Now fix him."**

Doctor Russell cringed as the Queen's eyes narrowed dangerously. The Wraith looked ready to simply leave despite the Colonel's orders. The wraith even went so far as to shift her weight in the direction of the door before the Colonel's hand moved to rest on her side arm.

The Queen's shoulders stiffened, then she moved smoothly, her eyes remaining on the Colonel as she knelt down by the man that had caused her so much agony not half an hour before. She looked down at him, her face unreadable as she tore open the top of his BDU with more force than was strictly necessary. She then leaned over him, her right hand poised. It was at this point that she paused, eyes sliding back to the Colonel once more.

She flexed her right hand, feeling the enzyme slick her palm, then she slammed her feeding hand down on the General's chest.


	2. Derelicts

AN: And here begins part two. Again, this is a shared work, Benton in bold and Katie in plain text. Please enjoy, and as always, reviews/notes are much appreciated. We like to know that you're reading, and it's nice to hear what you think!

Part three is in the works! We update when we can. This second part came together quickly…future updates will not be quite this fast. Keep watching, we'll keep writing!

.o0o.

Derelicts 

By Katie Lipton and Benton Brahm

.o0o.

**Jenny and the rest of the nurses tried as hard as they could to keep their amusement from their faces as Kenna and Cain went round and round in their verbal sparing match.**

**Dr. MacKenzie was almost shouting, "Just look at the bloody screen. You're not a fucking lizard, you're human, just like me. Just like everybody else here." **_**Wow, what a delusion.**_

"**I'm hardly the same as you, for one thing I don't have those odd parasitic growths on my chest." Cain sounded scornful.**

"**Growths?" Kenna sounded shocked.**

"**For another I'm not nearly as soft and squishy as the rest of you."**

"Squishy?" Kenna looked both puzzled and vaguely insulted. She backtracked, getting back to his first statement, "Have you not seen a female before? I assure you, I'm perfectly healthy."

At this, Jenny couldn't contain herself and ducked around the corner with a strangled snort. Kenna shot a dark look after the fleeing nurse.

**Cain frowned, "Feemale? You have a two genders?"**

"…Yes," the doctor blinked at her patient, seeing that he really had no clue that people came in two distinct genders. She sighed, having not expected to have "the talk" with an 18 year old, and not looking forward to having to explain the differences.

"Look, you're a male, I'm a female. You've already noticed some of the physical differences…"

**Cain shrugged, "I've met many aliens. Some of them have one gender, some have two." Cain cocked his head to one side thoughtfully, "We encountered one species that required the participation of twelve genders in order to reproduce…" He shrugged, "How was I to know that my species had two? Or what they were. So there are other physical differences? And are there nonphysical ones? And if those are not parasitic growths what are they?"**

Doctor MacKenzie opened her mouth to reply but was saved by a marine who stepped in and waved her over. She gave him a look of gratitude before turning to Cain, "if you'll excuse me," then she made her hasty retreat.

**Cain looked after her his mouth open. He snapped it shut and frowned. Somewhere behind him he felt a familiar mind, and he smiled. "Jeniffer," he called sweetly, "You're supposed to be my guide. Answer me a question," The smile turned slightly predatory, "You are feemale, yes?"**

.o0o.

**The Wraith Queen was strapped to a bed, a single I.V. line going from a large bag of clear fluid to her arm. As she began to truly awaken she heard voices around her.**

"…**So you see Dr. Day, General, I've always advocated drugs as the ideal means of restraint. Bindings of any sort will chafe at the individual and there is always the risk of a crazed or determined prisoner harming themselves while fighting the restraints. Or, in this particular galaxy, there is an excellent chance of a prisoner actually breaking free. However, pharmacology offers us another option- as in this case. We are uncertain how strong a Wraith Queen is, so instead of relying on traditional restraints we rely on muscle relaxants. This leaves the subject relatively clear headed, but unable to fight."**

**The General had a smile in his voice, "I notice that even though you believe in your drug based restraints you still have her bound."**

"**General, I also believe in not taking chances."**

"**Good work doctor."**

"**Good god Kenna," Day sounded vaguely horrified, "I thought you were a UN doctor."**

"**I was. And now notice how I'm here, far away from civil rights cases and the Geneva Conventions, and not there." **

Eyelids fluttered open to reveal unfocused green eyes, the feline slit restricting to the barest line in the bright lights of the infirmary. She let her eyes close again and took a deep breath. She felt heavy, her limbs weak. There were humans in the room, some she recognized, and some she did not.

She opened her eyes again, squinting against the brightness of the lights above her. The Queen tried to turn her head, only to find that her body did not respond. Alien green eyes dragged across the small crowd before falling on the familiar face of Doctor MacKenzie, "What have you done to me?" Her voice was weak, raspy.

**Kenna leaned down and began to check her over, "I was ordered to restrain you until you were conscious. Some people didn't trust your actions before you remembered where you were and what your situation was. So I did…restrain you I mean."**

The Queen was quiet for a long moment, her eyes moving sluggishly around the group of people, recognizing the General. She frowned, then tried to rise. Kenna planted a hand on the wraith's chest and gently but firmly pressed her back to the bed.

Panic spiked through the Queen on an instinctual level at the Doctor's touch. She tried to reach up to defend herself, but found her wrists tightly bound. She was utterly unable to move. The panic began to subside as her rational mind caught up and knew that the Doctor could not Feed, and would not hurt her, "I am awake," she hissed, her head spinning.

"**So I can see." The General growled, "You broke three of my ribs."**

"You will survive," her gaze fell upon him, but lacked both focus and intensity. She then seemed to relax back into the pillow, her eyes unfocused on the ceiling and a small, self-satisfied flitted across her features.

**The General grunted then nodded, "I award cooperation, not defiance," Mordan paused for a moment then nodded again, "Doctor, purge the Wraith, get her mobile. After that… Day she's all yours. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go execute a security screener back on Earth."**

Day watched as the General departed, cleared his throat, then turned to the Queen, "I am Doctor Malcom Day. You've done us a great service, and I would like to personally thank you."

The Queen blinked at him as she struggled to focus her eyes on the man before her. He was one of the humans she had "treated" with the enzyme, the faintest trace of a feeding scar apparent at the collar of his shirt. The Queen nodded slowly in response to the gratitude that the human offered her, "You…are from London?"

Day backed up a step, looking to the Doctor who had a new bag of fluid in her hands and was getting ready to switch out the bag connected to the wraith, "You said she wouldn't be able to get into our heads while sedated," he said in a hushed tone.

"She shouldn't be able to," Kenna frowned.

"You...sound like Colonel Aaren," the wraith observed.

"**You should be up and about in a bit…" The Doctor was interrupted by a shout followed by raucous laughter. "Excuse me. There seems to be something else I need to deal with."**

The wraith watched the doctor leave the room, her gaze slowly coming to focus as she started to gain a strange sharp prickling sensation in her limbs. She turned her head, meeting Day's eyes as she began to flex her hands, then she raised her head and looked pointedly at the restraints that still held her wrists.

"Oh, of course," Day moved closer to the bed and began to undo the bindings, all the while an internal war played out between his wishing to learn more about her and her culture, the knowledge that this individual had shown a great amount of restraint while helping the humans of Atlantis, and the instinctual need to run away from the life sucking alien.

.o0o.

**In the next room, Corporal Emily Walker had come awake to what was likely the worst part of a conversation between the nurse and the stranger about… genders and reproduction?**

"Emily, how are you feeling?" Doctor MacKenzie asked as she did her best to focus on the patient before her as opposed to the nurse behind her that was blushing so hard it was a wonder she didn't combust on the spot.

"A lot better than I thought I would be…I thought I got shot?"

"**Yes, yes you were. By all rights you should be dead. Between the gunshot, and the virus your chances weren't good. Then... something happened." Kenna frowned, "Honestly we're still trying to determine what that was. Our only witness wasn't very forthcoming." She glanced back at where Cain was continuing to make Jenny blush with his overly serious and analytical questions.**

Walker looked at the man sitting on the bed across from her. He wasn't someone that she recognized. She frowned in thought, bits and pieces of the past day filtering through her consciousness, "What happened yesterday?"

**Kenna shrugged, "You know, the usual. We all almost died, the brain trust managed to hold things off for just long enough to figure out a solution. We all got better. Dr. Russell is insufferably smug and were cleaning up the aftermath."**

"Oh…is that all?" They sat in silence for a moment.

Across the isle, Cain was staring at Jenny's front, the nurse looking rather uncomfortable, "Okay, I understand the biological rational behind them," he leaned closer, now eye level with the indignant nurse's bust line, "but why are they so fascinating?"

**Jenny turned a bright red normally associated with severe sunburn. She opened and closed her mouth trying to force something, anything out past the embarrassment that had lodged itself in her brain. Images chased each other through her mind, all the reasons in her experience why 'they' were fascinating to young men. And knowing that he could see every image only made it worse. Finally a small squeak escaped her mouth and she fled.**

The young nurse raced around the corner and nearly knocked the rather unsteady looking wraith off her feet. The Queen's eyes widened as she swayed back with a startled hiss, reaching out to catch herself on the nearest solid object…which just so happened to be Doctor Day.

**Doctor Day's hands snapped up as though he was being threatened with a gun. The marines also reacted, and four rifles were pointed quite steadily at the Queen's head. Jenny, unaware of all of this, barred on past without stopping.**

"**It's all right," Day's hands turned placating as he gently pressed down the muzzles of the rifles he could reach, "She's not feeding- just needs to steady herself. Everybody relax."**

The Queen frowned after the retreating nurse as she stepped back from Day. The wraith nodded to the human, grateful for his assistance. _Ah yes, the reverse feeding maneuver, done blindly behind one's back, _she though sarcastically, annoyance washing through her as she stared down the nearest marine.

**Kenna and Emily watched the fleeing nurse while trying not to laugh, Cain just looked confused. There was the sound of some sort of altercation in the hallway. Then Cain snorted once, tried to contain himself, failed, and doubled over laughing.**

Corporal Watcher stared at the young man as he continued to laugh, "what's with him?"

Kenna shrugged, "Somebody thought something funny."

In the hall, the welcome sound of Cain's laughter broke the moment. The Queen turned, more or less dismissing the marines, her limbs still feeling oddly heavy and prickly as she made her way into the main room of the infirmary.

"Cain," she greeted him with a smile that contained far too many teeth, "I am pleased to see you awake."

**Cain wiped his eyes and smiled up at the Queen, "Likewise. I understand I have you to thank for getting me to the medhall?" Cain, much to everybody's surprise, seemed genuinely happy to see the Queen. **

The Queen nodded once, "It seemed as though you could use some quality time with Doctor MacKenzie." Though she did not show it on her face, inwardly she was pleased to have his gratitude.

**It was at about that point that Emily's mind caught up with what Dr. Mackenzie had said.**

"**Wait. WHAT?"**

"Cain here," Doctor MacKenzie began, "seems to possess some remarkable talents, one of which is being able to get into people's heads."

**Emliy blinked, "What?" This time it was a lot more deadpan than her initial outburst. Again she glanced over at where the young man was talking to the wraith.**

**Cain, for his part, was trying to focus on the wraith. To a certain extent, he was succeeding, but the feemale in the bed across from him was strangely distracting. Her mind was ordered and disciplined, but also flexible and capable. His eyes kept drifting to her and he would yank them back as soon as he noticed.**

**To distract himself, he addressed the Queen, "So if we are to continue this association then I cannot simply keep referring to you as 'Queen' or 'Queeny' or whatever else I come up with. Do you have a name?"**

"I do," she said absently, running a hand up the back of her arm. She was pleased to find that the prickly sensation was gone, "though there are few Wraith that know my Name, let alone humans. A Name holds a lot of power. Those on my Hive address me as 'My Queen'." When she said the title, Cain received images, feelings, scents, memories; everything that was needed to identify the individual before him from all the other Queens in the system.

**Cain glanced over at Emily again, then jerked back the Queen, "So if I called you Queeney" all the sights sounds and scents were projected back, "I'd be talking about you?"**

She curled a lip at him, deciding if the form of address was meant to be mocking, "Correct. Though if you do so, I may begin addressing you as 'Cainey'."

"**Well throw me a line here. Calling you Queen just sounds weird. I'm not calling you 'My Queen,' 'cause you're not. So what am I supposed to do?"**

"If my form of address does not work for you, then I suggest you simply think loudly in my direction."

Any further discussion was postponed as Colonel Aaren entered the infirmary. She paused in the doorway, taking in the sight of her two former prisoners having a conversation that was only half way understandable, while four marines stood around the edge of the room, their guns drawn though their stance was relatively relaxed. Both the Queen and Cain had been outfitted in basic white scrubs, and were both looking to be in fairly decent health. One bed over, Corporal Watcher was speaking softly with the Doctor.

"**Has anybody seen Dr. Day? He's going to sign off on a few things for me."**

MacKanzie looked up at the sound of the Colonel's voice, "Ah Samantha," she glanced around, "I don'na know where he's gone, he was here a moment ago."

"Sir, last I saw him, he was heading down toward the observation rooms."

Aaren nodded to the marine in thanks, her hand straying to her radio as she headed down the hall, "Doctor Day, where are you?"

"Aaren, I thought I'd check in on our new prisoner," Day's voice was almost drowned out by the horse shouts of Brian, as the terrorist continued to battle his own deamons.

"**Hey Kenna I though you believed in pharmacological restraints?" Samantha called over her shoulder.**

"**I do." Kenna called back, "But only when I value the continued health of the restrained. That bio terrorist bastard deserves whatever happens to him."**

The Queen let out a low chuckle at the Doctor's bluntness as MacKenzie looked over the human female in the bed once more. Then the Doctor straightened, seemingly satisfied with the status of her patient.

She then walked right up to the Queen and grabbed the wraith's wrist, closing her eyes as she measured the pulse. She then pulled a small pen light from her pocket, and proceeded to shine the beam in the Queen's eyes, watching as the pupils both reacted correctly, constricting down to a faint line.

The wraith looked vaguely apprehensive, but allowed the Doctor to finish looking her over.

**Kenna made a few notations on her pad, "How's your balance? Close your eyes and take a step forward?"**

The Queen closed her eyes, moving forward with confidence. After three steps she felt that she was getting close to the end of Cain's bed, so she turned and strode back toward the Doctor, "I am well, now that the heaviness has gone."

**Kenna nodded, "Good, good. We know your people heal faster than we do, but how fast, and how much it varies between individuals is still very much up for debate. I'd also like to run a full physical on you, just to make sure everything is working the way it should."**

"Healing time is determined by both the individual wraith, as well as how recently they have fed. I assure you Doctor, I am fine." She wasn't entirely sure what a physical entailed, but she had already been extremely accommodating to the humans, and wasn't really willing to put up with any more poking or prodding.

"**Yes, well I'm sure you feel better, but if I'm going to give you a clean bill of health then I need to make sure. We still don't know if the virus is going affect you, or if it is already affecting you. I need to make sure that nothing unexpected has happened, or will happen at the worst moment."**

The Queen sighed, resigning herself to this 'physical,' if it meant her freedom from the medical wing, "Your concern has merit. What must I do?"

**Kenna smiled. It was even a nice smile rather than one of her 'mad doctor' smiles, "Well, mostly you sit while I check you over. I'll do some blood work, and make sure everything is working like it should- no joint or muscle pain. Things like that."**

"Very well," the Queen said as stepped to the wall, totally ignoring the marine that tensed at her approach, and retrieved a chair. Furniture moving was not normally on her list of duties performed, but she had the feeling that the soldiers would be unwilling to serve her, and in light of this, took matters into her own hands.

She settled near Cain's bed, sitting rigidly in the wooden chair as the Doctor gathered up her required tools.

.o0o.

**Meanwhile, Samantha Aaren walked down the hall toward the isolation rooms to find Doctor Day standing outside one of the doors, "You know I want to take my team out to investigate the two derelict spacecraft."**

"I had thought you might," Day said as he moved away from the man in the isolation cell and started back toward the infirmary, Aaren falling into step beside him. The terrorist was nowhere near lucid, and honestly, the man's screaming put Day on edge, "When were you wanting to go?"

"**As soon as Kenna clears the wraith and Cain and I can stuff them into flack vests."**

Day stopped short just before they got back to the main group, "You want the wraith and Cain? And why exactly would we let them out?"

"Sir," Aaren began in a hushed tone, "the chance to study a Hive with a cooperative wraith is worth the risk. I'll take a second team specifically to keep her in line. Also, the Queen has a shiny new transmitter in her back…it's not like we could loose her."

"**Are we sure about that? We know very little about Hive ships, even less about how a Queen interacts with them. Who knows what she could do once you let her on board? And even if that was an acceptable risk, how do you justify Cain? He's even more of an unknown than the wraith, as weird as that is. Plus, we don't have a tracker in him."**

"Well, I already know she doesn't like to get shot, and I have faith I can make her behave if I really need to. As for Cain, we have absolutely no base knowledge about his culture or their tech, and it's unlikely we'll be able to make heads or tails of any of it without his help. We can't ignore this…I'm pretty sure Doctor Russell will find a way to get out there. I for one, would rather she go with an expert and a squad of marines."

**Dr. Day growled, "We could always throw Monique in the brig to keep her here." He sighed, "No you're right. Assemble your teams, get Kenna to clear them for active and get going."**

Samantha laughed at the image of locking up the scientist, "You know she'd just find a way to override the door controls," then she sobered, "Thank you Sir." She turned crisply on her heel and headed in to see how long it would be before she could collect her wraith and her Agi.

.o0o.

**Once the Doctor had claimed his wraith, Cain screwed up his courage and turned to the overly fascinating woman in the bed. After a moment, he got up and tried to wander casually over to Emily. He stood awkwardly for a moment before speaking much more quietly than he had intended, "How are you feeling?"**

Emily Watcher had seen puppy love before. The young man before her fit the bill perfectly. She smiled, knowing he was somehow responsible for her being alive, and wanting to know how, "I'm feeling far better than I should right now. Doc Kenzie said I have you to thank for that."

**Cain shrugged, "I healed your wound. I've never healed anybody like you before... except for myself, as much as that is applicable. I hope I made no mistakes."**

"How did you…okay, I'm not going to pretend that I understand anything that has happened in the past day, but I can say thanks. I feel great, thank you."

**Cain smiled and desperately tried to think of something else to say. Anything. He really couldn't understand why he was feeling this... excited? Nervous? It felt very much like the first time he had been invited to join the Raid Mind. He knew he would have to say something soon. The silence was beginning to stretch, and the tension would soon become painful. But the more he tried the more it seemed like his mind would only run in tiny little circles as opposed to anywhere useful.**

Corporal Watcher took pity on the young man as she felt the moment stretch. She smiled, noting the way his eyes twinkled as she looked at him, "My name is Emily," she offered him a hand.

**Cain looked at the extended hand for a moment and wondered what he was supposed to do with it. The answer leapt out of her mind and, for all intents and purposes, smacked him between the eyes. Something about this woman had him turned inside out so much, that for a moment he hadn't thought to go looking for the answer.**

**Cautiously he took that hand and squeezed and shook like she expected, "Cain." He said, and smiled.**

She returned his smile in earnest, beginning to warm up to the strange young man, "Looks like your friend is getting checked out, you next?" She nodded to the Doctor who appeared to be trying to convince the annoyed looking wraith to open her mouth, "Personally, I can't wait to get out of here. Never liked hospitals."

**Cain, for a moment, found himself wishing to destroy all hospitals everywhere ever for all time for daring to cause her distress. Then he got a hold of himself, "Why do they keep you?"**

"Doctor MacKenzie wants to make sure I'm healthy before letting me go. Honestly, neither of us understand why I'm not dead right now. Something happened, because I know I was shot, and if what I've heard is true, there's no way I avoided being exposed to the virus."

.o0o.

**The Colonel walked in to find Kenna trying, with only a minimal amount of success, to give the Wraith a physical.**

"**How soon can we get our to guests ready for travel?"**

"**At this rate?" Kenna threw her hands up in the air in disgust, "Never. Since she won't let me examine her I can't clear her for much of anything."**

It was obvious that Aaren now had the wraith's full attention, "You intend to take us somewhere?" Her multi tonal voice sounded both curious and hopeful.

Doctor Day stepped up behind the Colonel, simply content to watch and see what he could learn about both of his "guests". Cain seemed to be having a rather strained conversation with Corporal Watcher, and the Wraith, while not being unreasonable, wasn't making things particularly easy for the Scottish Doctor.

"Not if you don't let me examine you," Kenna said sourly.

The Queen rounded on the Doctor, a growl rumbling deep in her chest as she ticked off points on her fingers, "I let you take my blood, you have looked in my eyes, my ears, my mouth, you have listened to my chest, I've assured you I'm in no pain, what more do you want?I fail to see how that was not an examination."

"**Because you've absorbed a lot of damage and expended yourself fairly recklessly on our behalf in the last couple of days. I would be remiss as both a doctor and as a host..." She paused, pretty sure that she now had the Wraith Queen's full attention, "if I did not make sure that you were physically capable, and at no risk of further injuring yourself due to something that we couldn't tell was a problem at the moment after the gauntlet you've been through. That weapon that the general brought from Earth worries me more than a little. And the virus is still propagating in your system. It's not doing anything now, but who knows what it might do under stress."**

The Queen's eyes narrowed slightly, a movement that MacKenzie would have missed had she not been standing practically face to face with the wraith. For a moment the four of them said nothing, and the only sounds in the infirmary were the various noises of the medical equipment, and the muted conversation between Cain and Watcher.

"You are a better…host than the rest of the humans I have dealt with thus far," her words were precise, taking on a formal cadence, "your terms are acceptable." And with that, she returned to her chair and waited calmly for the Doctor to finish up her tests.

Day and Aaren exchanged an unreadable look as MacKenzie grinned broadly and proceeded to make quick work of the rest of the physical, aided by a cooperative, if slightly hesitant patient.

Doctor Day was satisfied that the wraith had been won over, at least for the time being, and turned his attention to the Agi and his Corporal.

**Cain snorted, "I healed you. People I heal stay healed. They should let you go." Cain spoke with authority, for the moment conveniently forgetting everything he had said about making mistakes. Then he spoke softly, words ment only for him and the woman at his side, "Emily I hope we could... if you're willing, perhaps speak again at some later point in time."**

**He then turned to Kenna MacKenzie, "What if there was a way to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that both of us are ready and capable for action?"**

**Kenna hesitated fighting a familiar battle with herself, the part of her that received top marks in medical school said that nothing could be as safe, or as through as her own examinations. The part of her that made her brilliant and got her in trouble with the UN said that whatever Cain had planed would be more interesting and informative than just poking at either of them. As usual the latter part won, "What do you have in mind?" Kenna asked cautiously, even though she already knew that in all likelihood she'd go along with it just to see it.**

**Cain's smile broadened, "It is a tradition amongst my people to test themselves in a certain way after injury." The word Cain spoke next meant nothing to anybody in the room. What his mind told them translated very well to, 'Spar'.**

The Queen's eyes seemed to light up as she spoke around the thin glass instrument that she dutifully kept under her tongue, "There is a similar practice among the Wraith. Once released from the medical ward, it is common for a warrior to head strait to the arena."

Aaren managed to hide her amusement at the Queen's somewhat slurred statement, but only just. She cleared her throat to pull the Doctor's attention, "Kenna, I'd like them back on active duty as quickly as possible. Remember," she nodded to the Queen, "this one has been doing this for far longer than we have, I imagine she's a pretty good judge of her own abilities, and the two of them," a nod to Watcher and Cain, "look to be feeling quite good as well. I suggest you leave the wraith be, and clear the other two."

**Kenna nodded and pulled the thermometer out of the Wraith's mouth and checked it. "Well if this works it will certainly prove that you can handle yourselves under stressful situations." She started over to Cain only to meet his eyes, and for some reason decided that he was probably fine, so changed course to Corporal Watcher instead.**

Colonel Aaren saw the Doctor's dismissal, and seized the opportunity to snag both of the aliens out of the medical ward, "you two, with me."

The walk to the gym was only mildly uncomfortable, and despite having a wraith with half a dozen armed men following in her wake, there were no problems along the way.

The gym became unnaturally quiet when they arrived. Aaren cast a look around the room in general, her expression telling her people to continue their exercises, and after a moment hushed conversation resumed. It was obvious that nobody was particularly paying attention to their tasks though, as all attention was on the trio that stepped onto the sparring mat.

**Aaren stripped off her jacket and turned back to the following aliens. Examining the two of them for a moment as she walked into the center of the soft mats. "Well? Who's first?"**

**Cain stepped forward rolling both shoulders, he took a deep breath and when he opened his eyes again his pupils had contracted down to almost invisible points. His hands came up almost as if he was surrendering, one foot slid slightly forward and then he froze. He didn't blink, anybody watching would be hard pressed to see if he was even breathing.**

**Aaren set herself, weight forward on the balls of her feet, fists up. A moment later she lunged forward with a jab. Cain simply stepped back so she hit nothing but air, as he did with the next three. He seemed content to simply defend against anything light she could throw, so she committed. She swung again with her weight behind it. This time he responded, he again deflected the blow to the out side but a moment later his open hand was in her face. She weaved outside of it just in time to hear a rushing sound go by her head. Not wasting time to look she clenched hard, hooked his leg, and sent them both to the mat.**

**Cain pulled his knees up, balling up. Samantha expected to land on the young man, but instead of knees and elbows, she seemed to hit an almost squishy smoothness. No sooner had she registered the odd sensation than Cain squirted out from underneath her to one side. He quickly rolled to his feet and leaped the entire length of the mats backwards landing lightly on his feet and breathing hard. Samantha stood up slowly, still just getting warmed up.**

**She approached cautiously throwing another few shots at his face, which he again avoided easily. Then she kicked him in the knee, Samantha was certain she would catch him by surprise but instead of hitting the back of his knee she felt her foot sink into that same squishy give and the kick stopped a good inch from his leg. To late to stop, she was already grabbing the shoulders of his shirt. Before she could even think of changing her plans, both of his arms snapped up popping hers up and then he lunged forward planting both of his palms into her chest. The impact hurt but what worried her more was how the air around his hands seemed to distort and compress.**

**Aaren was certain that what was about to happen was going to hurt, but there was just a massive pressure all over her body like a huge wind hitting her in the face. Her fatigues fluttered plastering themselves against her front. Cain swooned, his eyes glazing, and Aaren's hammer blow caught him neatly in the side of the head, dropping him to the mat.**

**Samantha dropped next to him, he was breathing hard his face contorted in to a grimace of pain. She was about to call for Kenna when a strange squeaky growl interrupted her.**

"**Hungry." Cain said piteously and collapsed onto the mat.**

The Queen had imagined that Cain would fight well, but actually seeing him in action was impressive. He was fast, really fast. He also appeared to be using his mind to manipulate the air around him in some way. The wraith was seated at the edge of the mat, lost in thought, when he hit the floor.

The fact that he didn't bounce back to his feet drew her attention, and a moment later she was kneeling at his side.

Aaren called over one of the marines, sending him off to find food and bring it back as quickly as he could.

The Queen employed a much more direct approach. She found a man who was just opening a food bar of some sort, and pinned him with her gaze. She moved forward quickly, ignoring the sound of cocking guns behind her as she held him with her eyes. The man remained transfixed as the predator snatched the food from his grasp and tossed it to Aaren, who caught it neatly and peeled back the wrapper and offered it to Cain.

**Cain grabbed the offered bar and devoured the whole thing in two bites. He would have eaten the wrapper if Colonel Aaren hadn't managed to pull it away from him. With something in him, and a little help, he managed to drag himself off the mats and flop down boneless on to the ground.**

A few moments later the marine returned with a heavy tray full of sandwiches and various other quick-to-grab foods that could be snagged from the mess hall. The tray hadn't even been fully set down before Cain had snagged a roll and taken a giant bite.

"You going to be okay?" Aaren watched as Cain finished the roll and started working on another.

**Cain tried to say something around the mouth full of roll and failed. His thoughts though came through loud and clear, **_**I should be fine after as much food as I can stuff into myself, then a nap, and then more food.**_** Cain did manage to smiled around the roll as he stuffed in another mouth full.**

**Aaren nodded, "Well then, I guess it's your turn." She glanced at the Wraith and then walked back onto the mats.**

The Queen nodded, following the human out onto the mat. The gym went silent again as people realized that their CO was about to voluntarily go toe to toe with a wraith.

Aaren set up the same way she had for Cain, weight forward, lightly balanced, hands up, then she fired off a quick jab.

The Queen moved ever so slightly, just enough to be out of range of the human's strike. Aaren struck a second time, and again the Queen dodged, this time slipping to the side and advancing on the human.

She struck quickly, far faster than any human could track, and pulled the blow at the last moment. Aaren received a flat hand to the chest that would have tossed her to the back wall had she received it in earnest. Instead, she was shoved back several paces as the Queen backed off, gaining distance and smiling with way too many teeth. It was obvious that she was enjoying this game.

**Aaren blinked. This required a different strategy since she obviously couldn't trade blows with the Queen. The Colonel charged, and just as the Queen was ready to send the human colonel flying, she vanished. And a moment later the Queen was on the floor and Aaren was on her like white on rice. She'd reached back to her days playing football in college and executed the sort of vicious sliding tackle that would have gotten her thrown out of a game. Then she closed to grapple, where speed mattered less, strength mattered more, and neither of them could assail greater technique.**

The Queen's eyes widened in surprise as the human not only managed to take her down, but followed up by barring an arm across her throat and planting a knee in the center of her back. Slowly, Aaren began to bleed the air from the wraith's lungs.

The Queen fought down a spike of panic as she found she could not draw breath. She jerked her head back, hoping to catch the Colonel, but Aaren had been ready and ducked to the side, avoiding the blow.

Aaren then felt a drastic change in the Queen beneath her, who was no longer struggling. In fact, the alien had gone completely still. A light touch on Aaren's thigh drew her attention, and she found that the wraith had reached back and laid her feeding hand flat on her pant leg. A familiar prickling sensation coursed through her, its intensity just on the right side of true pain.

**Aaren's eyes widened, even as her mind processed what the Queen was doing, her body was moving. She popped her lower body up off the ground, and in a move that could have been stolen from a break dancer, swung her lower body around away from the feeding hand. This allowed her to twist her upper body and turn the wraith's neck into the fulcrum for the entire move, wrenching the Queen's head to the side and stopping just shy of breaking.**

"**Broken neck love," Samantha whispered in the wraith's ear, out of breath. "Does that make me win or do you keep coming?"**

The Queen let out a quiet growl, trying to speak but finding that the angle at which she was being held made it impossible, she closed her eyes.

Aaren smiled, knowing that she had just won a pretty significant point with the Queen, and eased up the pressure, allowing the alien to untangle herself. The Queen stood in a fluid motion, smoothing down her shirt as she looked at the bloody hole in Aaren's BDU pants. She wondered how much of the human's display of strength was her own and how much was from the enzyme now coursing through her system. Either way, the technique had been all Aaren, and the Queen could only respect a match well fought.

She took up a ready position in the center of the mat, looking to Aaren, her face unreadable.

**Aaren bounced to her feet wincing slightly at the bleeding hole in her leg, and shook herself out, cocking her head at the Wraith, "You want to go again?"**

The Queen only nodded, green eyes locked on the human. Aaren once again took up a stance as, around them, people began to murmur.

The Colonel struck quickly, intending to catch the wraith before she had fully settled. Mid lunge, the world stopped. She stopped. There was nothing but silence and those piercing green eyes. A moment later Aaren blinked to find herself kneeling on the mat, the Queen's feeding hand held closed against her chest. The alien leaned closer, her lips just brushing Aaren's ear as she breathed, "You're dead."

**Aaren blinked as the Queen immediately stepped back, "I guess I am." she waved back those of her people that had grabbed guns and come running as she stood up. "Was there a point to that?"**

"You wanted to be sure that I was fully healthy; that I could handle myself," she gestured to her own throat, where a slight bruise had begun to show, the black blood darkening the skin, "You surprised me, I do not wish you to believe that I am so easily defeated."

**Aaren nodded again, "Point taken." She sat back. "Wow, that enzyme's a kicker. I think I'm done."**

"**Enzyme?" Kenna's voice floated out from the entrance, "Was somebody taking Wraith enzyme? …Colonel why is your leg bleeding... Cain should you be eating that much? What the hell is going on in here? And why the hell did you start without me?"**

The Colonel turned as the Doctor approached, "Ah, Kenna. We...weren't sure how long you'd be, so we thought we'd get started without you," she gestured to the wraith who was sitting on her heels by Cain's side, seemingly impressed with the amount of food that had disappeared during their brief sparring rounds.

"You can toss some volunteers at her if you want to see for yourself, but I think she checks out," she glanced down to her leg, "gave me a little demonstration in wraith grappling techniques, and was kind enough to dose me instead of actually feeding."

"**Is that why you won the first round?" Kenna asked, "It's all that any of the troops are talking about. Their CO went up against both aliens and kicked both their asses."**

**Samantha frowned up at the doctor, "I won cause I'm that bleeding good, thank you very much."**

**Cain had filled his stomach to the point of bursting and sat back against the wall. Most people would be sick from the amount of food he'd just eaten. Looking down at the noticeable bulge in his stomach, he had to admit he was a little sick himself. But he had advantages. The same power that had healed him turned inwards, his body ripped apart the food he had eaten. A moment later his stomach was flat again. A quick trip to the bathroom and a little more food and he was on his feet again- feeling pretty damn good.**

"**Who wants round two?" he asked in broken and heavily accented English.**

Everyone paused for a brief moment, looking at Cain.

"You learn quickly," Aaren said, sarcasm evident in her tone, though the expression on her face said she was impressed, "Play with her," she said, jerking a thumb at the wraith, "I'm sitting out until the enzyme runs its course."

The wraith rolled her shoulders in a shrug, mimicking the motion she had seen the humans use as she stepped to the center of the mat once more.

**Cain grinned, stood, and approached. They faced each other, neither moving for a long moment. Then Cain swung. He was quick, but facing him, he seemed much slower than he had against the Colonel. She evaded him easily, and did so again on his second try. Slightly confused, she attempted to back-hand him. As before, the Queen moved faster than the human eye could follow but Cain was simply... gone. Then a hammer hit her in the stomach, but it was a small hammer, stronger Wraith muscles easily saved her from having to do more than take notice of it. Cain was there, having ducked the back-hand. The Queen attempted again to hit him, moving with more speed than she had before. She tried to elbow him in the back and again Cain was simply gone. She spun to find him behind her and had to immediately back up to avoid getting kicked in the face.**

**Suddenly she understood what he was doing. He wasn't moving faster, he was moving first! Before she even started to swing, but as soon as she had committed to the strike, he was already moving. The little man was reading her mind. The Queen frowned closing off her mind from the outside. Cain shook his head, confused for a moment, and in that moment the Wraith hit him. Hard. **

**Cain went flying straight into the back wall of the gym hard enough that everybody heard the wet crack of bones snapping like popcorn. Cain hit the ground and slumped. Nobody moved, the entire room holding a collective breath. Just as it seemed that Cain wasn't going to rise there was a grinding sound as bones rearranged themselves and fused back together, and no more than thirty seconds later Cain was standing.**

**The temperature in the in the gym plummeted like a stone. Cain began to walk forward and stopped a few feet from the wall, he raised his hand and made a fist and the Queen found herself lifted off the ground and flung forward. She, unlike he, managed to land hands and feet against the wall and hit the ground intact. She turned and found Cain's hand in her face, the air distorted in front of that hand. The next thing the Queen knew she was on her back in the hallway, her head was ringing, and Cain was in the air about to land on top of her. Her right hand shot up catching Cain in the chest in perfect feeding position. Cain didn't even flinch as she 'bit' him. He managed to touch her with two fingers to her forehead. She immediately had a headache and began to sweat buckets.**

"**You are dead." She growled up at him.**

**Cain smiled back at her, "Is that before or after I boil your brains in your skull?"**

"**I say it's a bloody tie! Now back off!" Colonel Aaren was yelling and sounding pissed as hell as she yanked Cain bodily off of the Queen, "Good god, you put her through the bleeding wall! You two spar outside from now on!"**

The headache lessened almost immediately as his hand left her. She remained on the floor, waiting for her head to clear. She laced her hands behind her head and regarded the Agi as he was hauled unceremoniously to his feet by the irate Colonel. Already she could feel herself healing from where she had been damaged when impacting the wall.

"And you had better stop looking so smug, you could have killed him with the shot you took. Sparring- not from where I was bloody sitting. If you think that was sparring, next time I'm bringing my P90. Christ."

The Queen sat up, spitting a mouth full of black blood into the hall and dragging the back of a hand across her mouth before offering Cain a lop sided grin, "That was amusing," the smile turned predatory, "I've never had anyone put me through a wall before."

**Cain laughed, "It gets old quickly. Relax Colonel, she does not hit as hard as my people do, though she is faster than most of them. I'm used to taking such force in practice- more actually. And if you wish to bring your weapon next time by all means, do, and next time I will be fed."**

"Is everyone okay?" Kenna's voice sounded small from the far side of the hole in the wall.

"We're fine Doc," the colonel called back before turning her attention to the aliens, "It's obvious that you're both feeling well. Think you two can play nice long enough to go out and do some recon on your ships? Doctor Russell knows a bit about Hives, but we rarely get the chance to really explore one….let alone explore one with a guide. And the other ship…I'm surprised I was able to hold her off long enough for the two of you to wake up and be ready to go."

**Cain froze his mind working furiously, "You wish us to show you our ships?" Cain glanced down at the Wraith, slipping into and out of her mind faster than she could track. He crooked a finger and the Queen was lifted into the air and set back on her feet gently. "Colonel, I think I speak for both of us when I say if you can get us to our ships we'll play as nicely as you could possibly want."**

The Queen tossed her head, sending bits of wall debris scattering about the floor as they fell free of her hair, "I can play the guide if that is what is required," she started to brush the dust from her white scrubs, then let her hands fall to her sides, "I would not miss the chance to learn what it is that the Queen had been hiding from me. We would have come to a deal, but she had something she was holding back."

"Good, now come with me, we'll get you set up."

A few minutes later found them all in jumper 2. The marines standing, Cain and the Queen restrained. Cain wore a simple pair of hand cuffs, and the Queen had a wide belt of leather around her waist, heavy duty shackles pinning her arms at hip level.

"Is this really necessary?" the Queen asked as they cleared the top of the main tower.

"**I agree." Cain looked mildly disgusted at the hand cuffs. "We agreed to cooperate. What more do you want from us?"**

"**Look kids. I just follow orders. And the orders from on high say if we take you places then you get restrained along the way."**

**Cain just snorted and for a moment there was silence before Dr. Russell spoke up, "Why are we seeing the Hive ship first? Why not the Agi one?"**

**Samantha turned to look at the good doctor, "My god Monique? What are you twelve? Because I said so, that's why. Now shut up or I swear I'll turn this spaceship around right now!" All the marines chuckled while the aliens just looked confused.**

Monique turned back to the instrument panels with a frown, but soon was bouncing in her chair again as they approached the Hive.

"Whoa, my readings say that the ship is a lot more dense than the last time we were up here, almost like a normal Hive."

The Queen made a peculiar noise in the back of her throat, "Of course," she murmured, "the ship has been repairing itself since the battle took place. It has been of sufficient time, it should be nearly whole again."

They waited in silence as the Colonel moved the Jumper closer, expertly piloting the ship to the mouth of the dart bay, only to find their way blocked, a fine membrane skinning the opening.

Aaren turned to the Queen, "Now what? Generally when I'm trying to come or go there are Darts in the air and this tunnel is open."

The Queen gave the Colonel a flat look, then her eyes unfocused briefly and the membrane seemed to peel back, leaving their way clear.

**The landing bay was much like any other Hive landing bay that any of them had ever been in, or been briefed on. The major difference was the corpses- they were everywhere. Wraith broken, scattered, and burned. Off to one side, a metallic something had burrowed its way into the hull and the Hive now seemed to be trying to return the favor. Growing tendrils of whatever the Hive was made out of were creeping inside of the whatever-it-was. In front of this was the first non-wraith corpse they had found. **

**It was huge, upright it would have stood almost eleven feet tall. The creature's legs belonged on a prehistoric raptor of some sort, three toed and heavy clawed, the tail was long and clubbed, obviously used for more than balance. Its frame was thick and heavy; muscled everywhere that wasn't a joint. The creature had thick armor plates covering it, and even its joints had sharp bone spikes protruding from the unarmored sections. Heavy claws adorned the end of every one of its six fingers and two opposable thumbs. The face was flat, no nose to speak of, just two flat slits over a wide mouth filled with shark teeth. Its eyes were simply black, set far back under thick boney ridges. A mess of horns emerged from the back of its skull, and a single wraith leg protruded from underneath the alien. Apparently the creature had managed to fall on the wraith that killed it before dieing.**

**By the time the rest of the teem managed to make there way of to it Cain was already there kneeling next to the head rocking back and forth slightly and chanting something that apparently nobody else needed to understand.**

The marines broke into two teams, one set of six accompanying the Queen and Russell toward the Bridge, and the other six remaining with Cain and Aaren.

Around them, the ship seemed to come alive. Lights winked on, their rich purple and ochre hues casting strange shadows on the chaos that littered the floor of the ship. A light mist crept along the floor as the life support systems activated, the Queen's presence bringing the ship out of its self-imposed hibernation.

The Queen could have been carved from marble, her face entirely devoid of emotion as she walked through the ruins of the wraith that once lived within the Hive.

The small party moved quickly, the twists and turns of the passageways starting to run together as Doctor Russell followed using her peripheral vision, most of her attention on the data pad that she was using to scan the Hive. She was so intent on her readings, she actually ran into the Queen when they arrived in the Bridge.

The wraith turned with a hiss, not wishing to deal with the dark skinned human who stood gaping.

**Cain stood and pulled a weapon off the simple harness that was all that the dead alien wore. The weapon looked like a sword until Cain hit what must have been the on-switch. It didn't glow, it shone. Cain was holding a small sun in the shape of a sword, and the Geiger counter that Monique insisted all the marines carry went berserk.**

**Cain, seeming unperturbed, took the whatever-it-was and began slicing through the parts of the wraith hull that were attempting to grow into the Agi pod.**

**Aaren, afraid to get too close to the blade that appeared to be shedding hard rads like confetti at a political rally, spoke from where she stood, "What are you doing?"**

"**The dead must be returned to the Whole. I will collect the bodies and the boarding pod will return them to my ship until I arrive there to finish."**

In the bridge, the Queen was staring down Doctor Russell. Then the wraith's head whipped back toward the dart bay, her brow furrowing. She turned on a heel and strode toward the main ship controls only to find marines in her way, "move aside," she barked.

She reached the controls and closed her eyes briefly, sagging slightly as her consciousness melded with the unfamiliar Hive. It only took a couple of seconds for her to scan all of the primary systems. Yellow green eyes snapped open as a screen activated, showing them the view of the dart bay, and Cain as he started cutting the organic material from the foreign pod.

**The marines considered for a moment getting in her way or saying something, but instead decided just to watch as on the screen, the body of the huge alien began to rise into the air and float into the pod. A moment later another joined the first, and then another. Finally, every one of the bodies from the dart bay, along with quite a few that weren't, had been placed in the pod. The foreign pod closed up, and pulled itself from the hive ship and started back towards the Agi one.**

**Cain turned and started straight for the next closest pod collecting bodies as he went.**

The humans watched in silence as the procedure was repeated until all of the Agi had been removed from the ship. The Queen carefully maintained the hull integrity, instructing the Hive to deploy more skin-like membranes each time a pod was launched. She also took the opportunity to search through the files that were stored on the foreign Hive, a small screen displaying the information as she flipped through the data banks.

She was learning a lot about the former Queen of the Hive, as well as her dealings.

"What's that?" Monique looked over the wraith's shoulder, spying the smaller screen, "what are you doing?" panic started to well up in the scientist as wraith text flowed across the screen faster than she could decipher.

"**She's learning." Cain was standing in one corner of the room where the old queen's body lay. He looked down at it as thought remembering something that happened long ago. Finally he shook himself and turned to her, "Find what you were looking for?"**

As Cain spoke she ran across a file that was encrypted, "Yes," she said in a distracted way as her fingers flew over the controls.

Aaren approached the wraith, stepping onto the platform behind the shorter queen and easily looking over her shoulder.

The Queen worked through the encryption after a few moments, and a video feed sprang to life.

A male wraith sat in a chair, his dark leather coat looking oddly out of place against the backdrop of an Atlantian meeting room. He had a tattoo around his left eye, the sharp markings reminiscent of a star burst. He was speaking with a human, making a deal.

Aaren gasped, "That's got to be a feed from Atlantis Base 1. Why in the world would the wraith have that?"

"Blackmail," Doctor Russell said almost immediately, "That's the wraith that was working with Atlantis 1. I can't imagine that whoever this wraith is would want to have their dealings with us known."

The Queen had gone completely still at the controls, her eyes locked to the features of the wraith on the screen, "he is a High Commander of my people, and yes, he would not want his dealings known," She frowned at the dead queen on the floor, "this is what she was holding back from me."

"And why should you care? There's like, thousands of you guys. So what, one of them flipped?"

The Queen gave Bradshaw a flat look, "You cannot possibly grasp the complexity of the situation."

**Colonel Aaren frowned, "Your right we can't. Mostly 'cause nobody explained it to us."**

"Wraith politics are hardly something I wish to discuss. Just know that the individual in the video would be undermined if his dealings with the humans were widely known," the Queen glanced over to the corpse of the former Queen, her face unreadable, "His alliances are important, and delicate. She would have been able to exploit him and there would be nothing within his power that could be done to defend against the resulting situation."

She made a few swift keystrokes, purging the file from the system. She turned away from the controls, frowning down at the white surgical scrubs, then strode out of the room.

"Where do you think you're going?" Aaren called as the wraith reached the doorway.

"To find some clothes."

**Cain apparently had grown bored sometime during the discussion of politics and had wandered away. Samantha seemed torn for a moment trying to decide whether to go after the wandering wraith or the missing Agi. Finally she swore and took off after the human alien, shouting over her shoulder, "Russell stay here, figure out what you can. Bradshaw use the tracker follow the Wraith. Team two with me. God damn aliens. Smug... superior... Never explain anything. How am I supposed to get anything done?"**

Bradshaw nodded, pulling a small hand held unit that showed a dot moving quickly down the hall.

It felt good to walk the halls, even if they weren't her own. Better yet, she was moving quickly enough that the humans would be hard pressed to keep up. She had earned a few moments of solitude. It took little time to find what she wanted: the Queen's quarters. She emerged after only a couple of minutes, wearing a pair of breeches, a long tunic, bracers, and a corset that was stepping away from fashion and nodding at armour. She shrugged into a battle coat as well, swathing herself in floor length black leather.

Bradshaw was standing by the door when she exited, a device in hand. She frowned, looking at the human in obvious annoyance.

**Cain wound his way though the maze of strange corridors. Somewhere behind him, he could feel Colonel Aaren's questing mind looking for him. He had to get away. If he let them take him to his ship he would never get back to the Whole. He had to go now. And ahead of him was his ticket out. The last boarding pod had punched all the way through the hull and sat in the outer-most corridor. With only a mental peek behind, him he climbed in side and sealed the door.**

**The pod that was designed to hold ten fully-grown Agi warriors was very spacious for a lone human. Cain sat himself down in the middle and closed his eyes, and one at a time, shut down everything but what he needed to make his mind work. His eyes stopped working and his sense of touch left. He lost track of time and lost his place relative to anything that he might have still been aware of. Soon all he was, was focused on his task.**

**He inhaled, or he assumed his body followed his orders, and began. He reached out to the Wraith first.**

_**You are about to suffer a hull breech. I don't know how you do what you did to repair the hull from the others, but you should be ready to do it again. I am going home. I will see you again my friend. Soon.**_

**He shifted his focus to the pod, picked it up, and turned it so that the hull puncturing point of the pod once again faced the hull, and drove it through. Feeling vacuum around it again the pod computer booted up. Sensing within it only one survivor, and hearing from the main ship computer that all the bodies of the crew had already returned, it turned and set about returning the lone raider to his ship.**

"Have you nothing better to do?" the Queen growled at the Lieutenant as she started toward the ship bay. Then she stopped, going absolutely rigid.

"What's…"

The wraith turned and grabbed the front of his tactical vest, slamming him against the wall of the hive. Half a second later the air thundered around them as the hallway depressurized. The Queen closed her eyes, splitting her concentration between holding the human, maintaining her feet, and manipulating the ship. After several heartbeats the rushing of air slowed, then stopped altogether.

The Queen let go of Bradshaw and rested her forehead against the wall of the Hive.

**The radio chatter began almost immediately, and stopped again almost as quickly as Colonel Aaren's voice ran over the rest of them, "What the hell happened? Bradshaw where is the Queen. Where is Cain? Somebody report in a goddam orderly manner. Before I throw the useless lot of you out a bloody air lock!"**

"I've got the Queen with me," Bradshaw croaked, rubbing his chest, "we just had some sort of hull breech, she kept me from being sucked out and seems to have done something to fix it."

His attention turned back to the Queen and he was struck with how petite she actually was. For a moment she looked almost vulnerable. The she straightened up, leveled a look at him, and proceeded to glide on down toward the ship bay with a predatory grace. The moment was decidedly over.

"**Good it's fixed. Everybody's accounted for except for Cain. Find him and find out what the hell he did. Everybody move now."**

"**Um... is this thing on?"**

**Aaren sighed, "Yes Russell, it's on. I have a lot to do. What is it?"**

"**Well... I don't know exactly how to read or work the instruments up here but I think something just busted out of the ship and took off towards the Agi vessel at high speed. Now there's this other screen that's trying to do something. I think its communications of some sort. I can make it work want me too?"**

"Communications? Like, someone is trying to contact the Hive?" Bradshaw blurted out, knowing very well that another Hive trying to make contact could be real trouble. The Queen stiffened at his words, then changed direction and headed toward the bridge.

"Yeah maybe," came Russell's voice over the com, obviously distracted.

"Russell?" Aaren's voice was sharp, "Doctor, talk to me."

"**Hmmm?" Russell was obviously losing her ability to think about anything but the problem at hand.**

"**Russell!" Aaren shouted, and the doctor jerked.**

"**I think I've figured out how to answer. The communications system is fascinating, I think with the proper adjustments that..."**

"**Doctor don't you dare answer that com. Do you hear me? God damn it Russell, I can't take you anywhere can I? Somebody stop her before she lets the Wraith know we have a Hive."**

The Queen stepped into the bridge at the same moment that the communication channel was opened. She lashed out with her mind, flooring Russell just before the screen displayed a slightly startled looking Commander.

His expression closed quickly, he hid his surprise well, "What are you doing there, where is the Queen?"

"I am now Queen of this Hive," she said smoothly.

"A bold move for one so young."

"Mind who you are speaking to," she growled. The wraith's gaze dropped downward.

"**What the hell is going on up there? I swear I'm gonna kill all of you. Somebody fucking report."**

**Bradshaw, following the Queen, was slightly out of breath, "The Queen is on the com. Monique is on the ground, seems stunned not injured." the Lieutenant started to gesture for the doctor to crawl to him out of the monitors pick up.**

"**The Queen... is talking to another wraith..." Samantha sounded strained.**

"**Yes ma'am." Bradshaw spoke through gritted teeth.**

"My apologies," the wraith continued, his gaze averted, "Have you any news of Atlantis? The previous Queen had thought she had found a likely location. I trust you would continue working with a lead so promising."

All of the humans in the room went dead still.

The Queen hesitated for the briefest of moments, "I have surveyed the planet myself, the Lantiens are not here. The previous Queen was misinformed."

The wraith grunted, a frown briefly slipping through the mask, "That is…unfortunate."

"Indeed. I trust you are still looking?"

The wraith nodded.

"I expect you will be looking elsewhere. Her feeding grounds are now mine, and I will not take encroachments lightly. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes…My Queen."

The screen went blank.

"**Ma'am? Did you get that?" Bradshaw was still whispering.**

"**Yeah... I did... Well isn't that something... Ask her something for me."**

**Bradshaw listened to the Colonel for a long moment then looked up, "Um... You... Wr... Queen? The Colonel would like to know if you know where th... Where Cain is at the moment?"**

A very small smile quirked the corner of her mouth, "On his way back to his ship, of course."

**There was a long moment of silence, then some of the most furious proper British swearing Bradshaw had ever heard. "Bradshaw the Queen is under her own recognizance. You're closest to the Jumper, grab Russell and GO. GET. CAIN!"**

The Queen watched in mild amusement as Bradshaw and the rest of the humans scrambled to catch the Agi. She touched the controls, bringing up the readings from the alien vessel. Already the energy signatures were changing, Cain was waking the ship and getting ready to leave.

A moment later she found herself alone on bridge with two of the human marines. She turned to them, a toothy smile on her face, "Gentlemen, it's time you earned your keep…"

**Cain looked up from the panel as the ships computer informed him that the Atlantians had finally caught a clue, and had come to get him. Perfect timing really. Cain stood, stretched, and headed to the power chamber, while asking the computer to make sure that his guests arrived in the chamber without incident.**

"Huh…"

"Russell, you know I don't like it when you do that. What's going on?" Bradshaw sounded worried.

Doctor Russell made a few adjustments on the Jumper instrument panel before replying, "it seems like this ship has some sort of automatic docking feature. I've lost control of the Jumper."

"What?"

"Don't worry, we're coming in perfectly fine."

**The docking slip fit the Jumper like a too small glove, which was odd next to the vaulted and spacious interior of the halls.**

**The marines and the doctor looked at each other, "Which way?" one of the marines asked.**

"**Perhaps you would be so kind as to follow the blinking lights." Cain's badly accented English came over the speakers, "You will find me at the end of the path. And we may speak."**

"Well, you heard the man," Russell shouldered her pack and looked down at her hand held scanner, "wow, these energy signals are amazing!"

"Hold on Doc," Bradshaw caught the back of her vest, halting her progress until two of the marines had taken point, "We've got to be careful."

Russell nodded, adjusting the scanner as she followed the marines out the back of the Jumper and down the hall.

**The ship was eerily silent as they followed the trail of blinking lights, as all but one of the ship's occupants were dead. The chamber where they were eventually found themselves was huge- built in the shape of a sphere. There was a single light-eating black dot floating in the very center, nozzles were set into the wall even with the dot around the perimeter of the room, their ends aimed slightly off center. The top and bottom of the chamber were capped with something that looked like collection dishes of some sort, and directly in front of them stood Cain at a control panel that was almost even with his head. Or would have been, if his feet had been on the ground. As it was, he was floating almost his entire body length in the air, which allowed him to comfortably work on the consul.**

**Something thundered out of the speakers in the same strange language that Cain spoke, after which Cain spoke to them, his word's meaning appearing in their minds, "Welcome. If I were you I would say what you came to say and leave quickly."**

"Leave?" Russell laughed as she looked to her scanner, "this place is amazing! I have so much work to do. We're not going anywhere. We need info on everything here if we're going to build something to defeat the wraith."

**Cain shook his head, "You misunderstand me. I am returning to my people. Please thank Colonel Aaren for returning me to my ship and giving me the opportunity to collect the fallen. In a few moments, the main power source," he gestured at the floating black dot which now appeared to be roughly the size of a beach ball, "will turn on, and then... tell me doctor. How much gravity can your people withstand? How much radiation?"**

"I…what? No. You can't go. I have so many questions. How are you doing that? What is the black dot?"

"**I'm guessing not enough. It is a black hole. In a moment the ship will begin to feed it matter. This will compromise the shielding around it. You could of course leave the room. But the next place the ship is heading is to this system's star. That's a lot of gravity, and a lot of radiation. And you humans are so very squishy."**

This statement dragged Monique's eyes away from her scanner and to the black dot. She visibly paled, "you're going to fly into a star? Won't that…you're serious aren't you?"

**Cain settled back down on to the floor, breathing hard. The voice thundered over the sound system and Cain nodded to himself, "You should go. And I am completely serious. Thirty seconds until the vents open."**

Bradshaw grabbed Russell's arm, "We've got to go."

The doctor looked longingly back at Cain, then allowed herself to be turned, and took off with the soldiers at a dead sprint.

**They piled into the Jumper, in the end almost having to drag Dr. Russell in with them. They didn't launch so much as get flung out of the docking slip and sent hurtling through space. Behind them, they could only watch as the energy readings on the ship spiked to easily within the range of a fresh ZPM. Then the ship turned and flew towards the star at a truly impressive rate of acceleration. It moved so fast, that by the time they were back in range of radio contact with the Wraith Hive, the Agi ship was more than half way to the star.**

"**WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE!" Samantha sounded like she was about to have a fit of apoplexy, "WHERE IS THAT SHIP GOING? WHAT'S GOING ON OUT THERE! ANSWER ME OR YOU WOUN'T BE IN FIT STATE TO REGRET IT! REPORT NOW!"**

"Cain is going home," the wraith said quietly as she stood over the controls, monitoring both the jumper and the Agi ship.

"He's planning on flying into a STAR!" Monique sounded breathless on the com, "Colonel, I got some amazing readings, even with my short stay on the ship. We'll meet you on the bridge."

**On the bridge, Samantha slumped onto a convenient bench, "Well bollocks." She watched as the ship fired seven particle beams of some sort into the star, which spat a solar flare, shedding a distressing blue light back at the Agi vessel. The ship was quickly enveloped by the flare, and was gone. "I hope you got a lot of good stuff Monique, cause I thing the Agi just incinerated himself."**

"These readings are like nothing I've ever seen," Doctor Russell stepped onto the bridge, tablet in hand. She looked up and spotted the Queen at the controls, "tell me you got that!"

The Queen quirked one brow ridge at the scientist, then took a step back from the controls. Russell rushed forward, entirely focused on the data on the wraith screen in front of her.

**Samantha sighed again, "Well there's no real reason to stay here any longer I guess. Queen can you get this thing moving again? Somehow I don't think we're going to be able to tow it through a Stargate."**

"The Hive has repaired itself sufficiently for travel," the wraith reported, "stand aside," she more or less stepped on the taller Russell as she reclaimed the controls, "What would you do with a Hive?"

"Can you even fly it?" Russell asked.

If looks could kill, Russell would have been in trouble, "Of course I can fly. Hive, Transport, Fighter, they are all vessels that I have been using for a long time."

**Aaren shrugged, "Don't know yet. Study it. Learn about wraith technology. Strengths, weaknesses. Maybe something else. The trick first is to learn all we can, then start making plans."**

**Almost simultaneously Russell, having seemed to miss any sort of threat, asked, "Fighters? You mean darts?"**

"Darts?" The Queen sounded genuinely confused.

"The ones you guys use to cull. We call them darts 'cause they're so pointy."

"Can we focus please?" Aaren cut in, sounding like she wanted nothing more then to head back to Atlantis and crawl into a hot bath for an hour or two…maybe with a glass of wine, "Bring the Hive down to the planet. We can park it on the main land and take the Jumper back to the city.

"And what of me?"

**Aaren cracked an eye, her whole demeanor indicating that she resented anything that made her think at this point, "What about you? You've clearly demonstrated that for whatever reason you're trustworthy, even in the field. Assuming that I'm still in charge after losing Cain, I'm gonna want you on my team." She closed her eye again and for a long moment seemed to sleep, then her eyes opened again and she actually focused on the Queen, "Why didn't you give us away? I can't believe that you couldn't have bargained something good for yourself out of this situation."**

"On the team? Aaren are you nuts?" Russell sounded beside herself.

The Queen gave Aaren a flat, considering look, and for a moment it seemed that she wasn't going to speak. Then her posture shifted slightly as she seemed to come to a decision, "The location of Atlantis is quite a bargaining piece, and you are correct, I could have gained significant standing with my people."

"Then why didn't you?"

The film footage flashed through her mind again, the High Commander and the Atlanteans, "I honor my alliances."


	3. Bane

AN: Welcome back loyal readers. At this point I'm sure you know the drill: Benton in **bold**, Katie in plain text. We thought we'd get away from the city a bit for this one. Action, adventure, exploration, destruction of property, and a good old fashioned monster/horror movie story ahead. Please read and enjoy. When you get to the end, do us a favor and leave a comment. We love hearing from you and really do appreciate the feedback.

Up next: mysteries, imprisonment, rampant bouts of unchecked telepathy, and a new cast member. Stay tuned!

.o0o.

Bane

By Katie Lipton and Benton Brahm

.o0o.

"Your men seem…uncomfortable, are you sure this is going to work?"

Colonel Aaren frowned at the wraith, "Leave my men to me, you just make sure you don't do anything to make this any more awkward than it has to be."

The Queen chuckled as she stepped out of the Jumper and into the mist. The ruins had once been a grand city, now long forgotten. Stone pillars and half rusted metal walls spoke of times of prosperity and technology, efficiency mixed with art to make this city something really special. At least it had been before the Great War.

"**Alright everybody listen up!" Aaren spoke with her parade ground voice, it wasn't a shout or a yell, but a projection that rolled out over the ruins like a blanket and wormed its way under the skin making you pay attention to it, "This is nothing new. We're looking for medtech- thus the good doctor." **

**Kenna chuckled at being described as 'good' given that she preferred to be called a mad scientist, something she made a point of explaining loudly while prepping a patient for surgery before asking them if they want any improvements made before putting them under and cackling to herself. **

"**I'm team one. Kenna and the Wraith are with me. Bradshaw is two. Touch nothing if you find it, report and wait for Doc Kenzie to show and make sense of it for you apes," Then her expression darkened and she glared around at the assembled troupes, "If any of you manage to break anything I will permanently cripple you and guarantee you will not pass on your faulty genetics to the next generation," She glanced over to where Corporal Watcher was smirking at her male teammates, "Females, I will make this guarantee with an ice cream scoop," Samantha Aaren's severely upper crust British accent somehow made all the threats just that much frightening, "Any further questions? No? Good. We search in standard grids. Move out!"**

The Queen took point, moving with predatory ease across the uneven ground. Her full-length, black leather coat made her easy to spot in the mist- a shadow moving silently through the ruins. Everything was still save for the sounds of the marine's foot-falls.

Kenna was excited. She loved going off world, and a chance to wander through Ancient ruins was a real treat. The doctor stayed by Colonel Aaren's side, her eyes constantly moving as she took in the city.

The wraith crested the first hill, entering the ruins proper, and stopped. Her head swung around, looking due South of their position. She reached up and activated her radio, "Someone is here."

**Emily flinched as the inhuman voice whispered in her ear, and looked back at Colonel Aaren as if to ask, 'Does she really have to have a radio?' Aaren ignored her and instead focused on the Wraith, "Where? Nail that down as close as you can. We're coming to you- we'll proceed from there."**

**Samantha turned to look at Kenna. The doctor simply shrugged, "The tip we got said that there was nobody alive here. And there certainly doesn't look like there's anybody here."**

"**Can't you scan for life forms or something."**

**Kenna sighed, "Sam, the name's MacKenzie not McCoy. And just because we spend a lot of time flying around in spaceships does not make this Star Trek. See the problem here? Besides, even if I am using the detector, it's just a wee dot on a screen- it really doesn't tell us much."**

**Emily covered her desire to crack up at her superiors by starting towards where her tracker said the wraith was.**

The Queen took a deep breath, scenting the air. She closed her eyes briefly, concentrating on the mind, "Not far," and with that she turned South and disappeared into the ruins.

Corporal Watcher followed behind the wraith, her attention half on the tracker and half on her footing. The dot that was the Queen moved forward quickly, swiftly weaving through the ruins. Then it stopped.

**Emily followed as quickly as she could with out taking a header, and a moment later came upon the wraith. The Queen was standing well back in the doorway of what looked like it was once a large open terrace several stories up one of the buildings. The platform had a commanding view of what was left of the city making it almost picturesque.**

**But what really attracted attention was the man sitting seiza in the middle of the open space with his back to them. His back was bare, a strange open wound still oozed blood mixed with a clear fluid. His hair was cut short except for several long tiny braids that would have hung down into his face if he hadn't kept them tucked over one ear. The braids were covered in brightly colored glass and metal beads. Next to him was a neatly folded shirt, cloak, three swords, two with simple curves and one with a strange S shape to the blade, and two guns that appeared to be Traveler made.**

**Watcher tried to push the talk button on her radio as quietly as possible but no sooner had she turned it on than the figure spoke, "I've been waiting for you."**

"Have you now?" the Queen moved forward smoothly, walking around the man and stopping in front of him, just out of sword reach. The weapons and the nature of his injury drew the Queen's attention. Letting loose the Prey for hunting was not something that her Hive practiced, but she was well familiar with the concept.

"Colonel? We found someone. Looks like a Runner."

"Hold your position, we'll be right there."

**The man looked up at the wraith with unnaturally vivid lazuli blue eyes and blinked in surprise, but there was nothing of fear on his face, "Yeah. I saw your shuttle land and have been waiting for you for the last twenty minutes. What took you so long?"**

The Queen dropped down to her heels, bringing herself to eye level with the Runner, "The Humans are not swift hunters," she purred, "You saw us coming and yet here you are. Are you making a stand little Runner, or waiting for rescue?"

**His head tilted to one side causing the beads in his hair to rattle softly, "Neither. I have no worries of your people finding me," he gestured at the ground where the remains of a crushed tracking chip lay almost directly underneath her, "And thus have no need of a rescue. Curiosity on the other hand... As to who is flying the Ancestor's ships, and why a wraith Queen is with them, now that will keep me in one place."**

The Queen made a soft, thoughtful noise in the back of her throat, then stood, lacing her fingers behind her as she regarded the Runner. Alien green eyes flicked up as Colonel Aaren arrived on scene.

"**And here come the rest of them." He stood and stretched, calling attention for the first time to the long scar over his breastbone and a rust-red, three-symbol tattoo placed over his ribs on the right side. **

"**Greetings," his eyes tracked over all the marines, Emily, and Kenna before settling Aaren, "My name is Ral, I am a Knight of Ascension and former runner. I've met your wraith Queen," his eyes skipped over the three women standing in front of the rest of the male soldiers, "But I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of you."**

**Kenna gazed at his smiling face for a long moment then spoke, "Was that blood on your back?"**

**The man Ral blinked, "Um... yeah isn't that what normally happens when you put holes in yourself?"**

"All right, sit, let's have a look," Kenna stepped forward.

"I'm Colonel Samantha Aaren, this is Corporal Watcher, Doctor MacKenzie, Lieutenant Bradshaw, and Privates Marks, Scott, and Goodman."

"**A pleasure to meet you all. I was kind of wonder... ing..." He looked over his shoulder to where Kenna had displaced the wraith and started to clean his back, quickly poking and pushing as though looking for something, "Can I help you?"**

"**There's no wound here," Kenna finally said, "The blood is fresh, but there's no wound."**

"**I never said there was one. I heal pretty quick."**

**Kenna had been devastated that Aaren had lost Cain. There had been so much she had wanted to know about how the Agi had shrugged damage off in seconds. Damage that would have killed a human, or sometimes even a wraith, "You do? How fast?"**

**Ral started edging away from the doctor and towards his weapons, "Depends on how bad the injury is," He glanced over at the Colonel and Emily, "Is she rabid?"**

"**The jury's still out on that one," Aaren replied with a chuckle.**

"When you get shot up out here, I'm the one that puts you back together. I'd encourage you to remember that," Kenna said primly, then her attention shifted back to Ral.

The Queen stood over the former Runner's equipment, looking down at the blades but making no move to touch them, "These blades are not of any worlds that I know. You have run far." There was something about the way that she made her statement that drew all eyes, an undercurrent that held both the raw desire of the hunt and an undertone of respect.

**Ral chuckled, "I hate to diminish any respect I may have gained, but I came from 'far'. I had those swords long before I started running," He glanced at Emily and winked at her before bending over and removing his back from Dr. MacKenzie's ministrations and pulling on his shirt, "So what brings you all here?"**

Corporal Watcher busied herself with cleaning the screen of the device she was holding, her cheeks coloring delicately as she shuffled her feet. Aaren missed nothing.

"Our sources believe that there is some medical equipment that was left behind in these ruins, something that may be very helpful in understanding the Ancients, and in aiding with our fight against the wraith."

**Ral gave a long slow glance at the wraith Queen that said many things, all of them sarcastic, "Well anything left by the Ancestors is bound to be handy," He pulled on his weapons harness. Settling the straps so that one sword lay across his shoulders, hilt to the right, another across his hips, hilt to the left, and the S shaped blade ran point to point between the other two, hilt down. Then the guns went into holsters and the cloak fluttered through the air, settling over shoulders and causing all of the weaponry to simply vanish, "And anything that helps with the wraith is doubly good."**

The Queen rolled her eyes, an expression she had seen the humans use, and let a slow breath out of her nose. She was not in the mood to stand idle and listen to the humans talk about killing her people, even if she did not personally relate to most of the common wraith. Their voices grew tiresome.

The wraith turned on her heel, and without a backward glance, stalked off the far side of the structure.

Doctor MacKenzie let out a yelp and ran to the side, looking down into the mist. The wraith was gone, "that's what, thirty, forty feet? I know she's tough but really…"

"Don't worry Doc, it's not like we can loose her," Corporal Watcher held up the small screen.

"**Ooooh. Runner-tracker in a wraith," Ral grinned savagely, "I like the poetry of it. If you like, I could keep an eye on her until you can catch up."**

**Aaren frowned, "Thank you for the offer, but why? In spite of what it looks like, I'm not in the habit of trusting every strange person we meet out here."**

"**I'd worry if you did. Frankly I'm hoping that if I make nice then you'll give me a ride. I know plenty of addresses. But none of them do me any good cause I have no way of activating the gate from this side. But I'll bet that little ship of yours has a DHD."**

"**Alright..." the Colonel nodded slowly, "If you think you can keep up with her, by all means go ahead."**

**Ral gave a happy whoop and took a swan dive off the edge of the platform after the wraith.**

"Bloody Hell," growled Kenna as the looked over the edge once again and saw nothing but mist, "Sam, you sure know how to pick them. First Cain and now this guy, aren't there any normal humans out here?"

Samantha frowned for a brief moment, briefly wishing that she had an answer for the Doctor, "let's move out people."

The Queen moved easily through the ruins, enjoying the silence and the open air after having spent the past two hours locked in a Jumper with nervous marines. Being Queen of a Hive didn't lend itself to a lot of planetside time, and she could feel the tension leaving her shoulders as she fell into her task of exploring with gusto.

**Ral had chosen to take the high road, and ran across the tops of half collapsed walls and mostly collapsed buildings after the faint tracks of the wraith Queen. He quickly found her as she stopped running and started exploring. Ral sat down on a wall to watch her until she emerged from a structure, having found nothing in the impressively large building that matched her objective, "So, what are you looking for exactly?"**

The Queen flinched, her eyes darting to the Knight, then her face became an unreadable mask, "I can see why you survived long enough to get your tracker out," then she ducked into the next doorway.

**Ral chuckled at her cold demeanor and followed her through the doorway, "Well thank you for the complement my dear. But, you still haven't answered my question. If you don't like that one, I've got another. You could always tell me why you're helping the humans."**

She growled, briefly envisioning tossing this human through the nearest wall, "I am looking for any Ancient technology that was left behind." She continued moving into the room, her attention split between her surroundings, and the well armed man at her back.

**The Runner in question continued to follow her, seemingly unconcerned by her hostility, "But that's what I don't get, you're obviously not interested in listening to... did you feel that?" He had frozen, feet splayed, hands spread as though catching his balance on a narrow beam.**

Before the Queen could reply, the floor dropped out from under them. There was a moment of freefall and wraith twisted, trying to land on her feet, but something struck her on the way down. Stars exploded in her vision and she fell, rubble showering down around her. She hit the ground knees first, the impact jarring. Something heavy landed on top of her, knocking her forward and pinning her to the floor. She blinked, her vision having shifted halfway into the blue range in the dimness of the basement.

"**Wow that was a fall," Ral's voice came from above her, "Hey, where'd you go?" the thing on top of her shifted slightly, "Hello? Miss wraith? ...did she manage to avoid falling?"**

The Queen drew a breath to reply, but ended up with a face full of dust and started coughing violently.

**Ral looked down and found that he was standing on the small wraith, "Oh there you are," He moved off of her quickly and hauled her to her feet, "You've got a little something there..." he then began to use his sleeve to clean the blood off of her face.**

She went rigid under his touch, but did not attempt to move away as he mopped the blood from the already healing cut on her forehead. She studied him, actually looking at the human for the first time, "you were a Runner," her tone was guarded, "and yet you treat me like this. Of all people, you would have reason to hate the wraith."

"**I was a runner for maybe all of two days. Long enough to get me seriously lost, but not long enough to really cause me any problems. Don't get me wrong I have no deep abiding love for wraith, but generally humans only hate what scares them."**

"And you do not fear me?"

**Ral shrugged, "Why should I? You can't feed on me. That's how I ended up with that damn hunk of silicon in my back. We were always taught that fear was a waste of time anyway; an emotion not worth the energy it takes to experience."**

"That is…refreshing," she said with a small smile as he finished and took a step back.

She turned, looking around the room. The weak sunlight filtering through the hole above them did not reach far, and the dust in the air somehow made the small patch of light feel even more minuscule. The Queen could see a large hallway to their left, though she knew the human would not be able to see it in the inky blackness of the unlit basement. The Queen rolled her neck, shaking the debris from her long hair, "This way." She stepped forward, the darkness swallowing her almost immediately.

"**That's great!" Ral sounded enthusiastic and then his voice abruptly turned dead pan, "Which way is this way? Not all of us come with built in flashlights."**

She didn't know the specific term, but she understood his meaning. The Queen started off, then turned, noting that Ral was standing patiently in the small shaft of sunlight. While this human was not strictly part of the Alliance, he was intriguing. Glowing blue eyes flashed in the darkness, then the wraith seemed to rematerialize in front of Ral. She sighed softly, then reached out and caught his wrist firmly, bringing his hand up and placing it on her shoulder. The Wraith moved carefully, very aware that her companion could not see as they picked their way through the rubble and into the clear space of the hall.

**Ral followed the Queen, whistling what could only be called a jaunty tune. After only a few minutes of walking, and way to many turns, they found themselves emerging again into light. Huge skylights illuminated a large and open lab. Ancient technology littered the area, while the center of the workspace was dominated by a bulky container large enough to hold an elephant. It was cold. So cold that mist condensed and flowed off the container. At the very top, one could just make out the top of a slowly failing ZPM.**

"**Well," Ral commented with a mater-of-fact tone that did not belong where they were standing, "I think you found what you were looking for."**

The wraith nodded slowly, taking in the details of the scene. She reached up to her ear and clicked on the radio, "Colonel, I think we found something." She received static in return. She growled at the inept piece of human technology.

A shadow crossed the room and the Queen tensed, green eyes darting around to find the threat.

**Ral turned his eyes upward and a moment later nudged the Queen and nodded up. Above them the roof of the lab was glass, and walking across it were the booted feet of Emily, Aaren and the rest of the team. They were milling around, body language confused, and they kept coming back to reference a hand held device of some sort before again wondering around confused.**

"**They sure do have a talent for finding you don't they? I wonder..." Whatever else the Knight had been about to say was cut off as something hit the inside of the large holding container with a resounding boom. The fog rolling off the thing had been growing thinner and thinner and now had almost vanished all together. Whatever was inside struck out at its prison again, and this time all the indicator lights flickered and dimmed before brightening again.**

"**Umm..." Was all that Ral managed to get out before the thing inside the huge steel box struck again putting a noticeable dent in the door, "I'm no expert in the Ancestor's technology but I'm gonna guess that's bad..."**

"Indeed," she growled, her attention jerking away from the humans above and focusing solely on the container box. She shifted slightly, and a dagger appeared in her hand, though it would have been almost impossible to tell where she had been hiding it on her person. There was another ear splitting crash, and this time the lights went out completely.

"I do not like this," she hissed as she moved off line of the front of the container.

**The lab plunged into a disorienting twilight. Shafts of thin smoky light fell from the skylights, but most of the room faded into darkness. There was silence for just long enough to make the pair wonder if they had somehow dodged a bullet.**

**With the sound of ripping and tearing metal, an enormous dark shape exploded out of the now underpowered containment cell that had occupied the center of the room. It towered over them, it's head brushing the skylights blocking out what little light made it through. The creature was silhouetted: it had two arms, four legs, was covered in some sort of thick armor plating. **

**Ral stood in the middle of the room, unmoved from where he had been when all this started. He stared up at the creature, hands on hips, seeming to catalog traits of the monster as it stretched and grew accustomed again to having enough room to maneuver, "I think I also see mandibles... Yup definitely has both mandibles and teeth. You know only one is really necessary, having both is just... some sort of overachievement. I'm not sure."**

The Queen stared up at the first non wraith being that she had ever run across that was older than herself. If the mature creature had been placed in captivity during the Great War, as Doctor Russell had told them during the briefing, then it was truly ancient. With age comes power, and this was evident as it drew itself up to its full height, inhaled with a cavernous growling sound, and roared.

The wraith remained perfectly still, her green eyes tracking the movement of the creature as it swept its gaze around the room in a long arc. A determined smile played about her lips as she reflected that her knife was far too small for this job.

The creature suddenly struck- moving far faster than one would expect from something with that much bulk. It lashed out to the side, one scythe like appendage slicing toward the Queen.

She danced back, just out of reach as she brought the dagger into play. The blade bounced harmlessly off the creature's armoured hide, numbing her hand with the impact. She uttered what was, no doubt, a curse in wraith, then jumped back again as the creature took a second swipe at her.

**Ral stood and watched the entire affair with an annalist's detachment. The creature lunged again at the wraith, and once more the wraith rolled out of the way. Ral sprinted and caught the edge of one of the plates lining the monster's arm and began climbing. Hopping from one armored plate to the next, he scaled the creature only a few seconds ahead of the giant creature's attempts to swat him. He balanced impossibly on the thing's head as it thrashed at him, then took a deep breath and drew the S curved sword and drove it up at the thick reinforced glass of the skylights. The glass shattered into millions of tiny spear-like fragments that flew with unnerving accuracy towards eyes and other soft vulnerable pieces of anatomy.**

"**You coming?" Ral called over his shoulder to the wraith, then scrambled through the skylight into the midst of the rest of the team and took off running for ground less likely to collapse at any moment due to monster.**

She took advantage of the distraction Ral offered and closed the distance between herself and the monster. The wraith twisted, avoiding another swipe as she took three running steps then vaulted at the creature's side. She landed dagger first, slipping the blade into a gap just behind the monster's forelimb. It howled with fury as she quickly scaled its side, using the dagger as a hand hold, and later a foot hold as she worked her way toward the shattered skylight.

The Queen launched out of the skylight, landing lightly in a crouch before she half turned, grabbed Aaren by the strap of her flack vest, and took off running.

**Aaren was rapidly coming to the conclusion that after almost six years of running combat missions on three different continents, this would be the one to do her in. And it would be because of high blood pressure, "Where the hell have you two been? What's going on? Get off of me you..." and then the monster erupted out of the ground. The dust and mist conspired to continue to obscure most of it as Ral peaked over his shoulder and ducked around a corner to get out of its intimidate line of sight.**

The Queen hauled Aaren back to a ruined wall and around the corner before letting her go, "We found a lab of some sort. The Bane was in a container but the ZPM was nearly depleted and it broke out. This thing is older than I am." Her words bore weight; somehow explaining that with age comes power without actually having to say so.

"Colonel?" Corporal Watcher's voice was shaky over the radio- it sounded like she was running, "We've got a huge freaking hostile, do we engage?"

"**Engage! Repeat, fire at will!" Aaren barked into her radio.**

"**Ma'am I'm not sure that's a great idea... oh never mind," Ral started then gave up as Aaren stepped back around the corner and pored her own fire at the silhouette of the Ancient's solution to the wraith problem.**

**Dr. MacKenzie on the other had, was staring at the wraith speculatively.**

The Queen stared back at the doctor for several heartbeats. The intensity of the human's gaze was annoying, "What?" she snapped as a barrage of automatic weapon's fire erupted in the background.

"**Of course it's older than you are. It's been in there for over ten thousand years." Kenna somehow turned what should have been a statement into a question.**

The Queen sniffed, straightening to her full height, though she had not been slouching, "There were very few of these during the Great War, it would have been mostly grown when it was captured, otherwise it wouldn't have been of much use to the Ancients. I'm old enough to recognize it for what it is."

"**Then the only question that remains, what did the Ancients do to it while they..." Kenna trailed off and looked up as a shadow fell across the clustered group.**

**The monster leaned over the building, ignoring the massed fire of the marines as if they were so many dust motes.**

**Ral frowned up at the beast as it roared, "Now why do you like us so much I wonder..."**

The Queen swore and took off in a dead sprint. She was faster than anything built like a human had any right to be, but as it soon became apparent, the monster was quicker. It cleared the high wall easily and galumphed after the retreating alien. A moment or two of watching, and it was clear that the Queen's dodging run wasn't trying to outdistance the beast, but lead it away from the humans.

"It would appear that the beastie is far more interested in the wraith than us," Kenna fidgeted in place as the two were lost in the mist.

There was a roar, followed the sound of impact. A moment later the Queen's shout rang through the ruins, making the humans cringe. The beastie roared again in response, and then there was more crashing. Whatever was happening in the mist, no quarter was being given.

"Incoming!" Aaren shouted as she dodged to the side.

The Queen flew back into view, solidly hitting the wall that they were all using for shelter. She bounced and landed in a heap, then lay still for several heartbeats.

**Ral looked down at the Queen, examining her, "Oh, she's got blood on her...though it isn't hers," He offered her a hand up, "What happened?" **

**Somewhere in the distance the creature roared again. In response there was loud human cry and then the explosion of grenades going off.**

She grimaced as she accepted Ral's hand up, deciding that relying on the human for a brief moment was far better than showing just how much the landing had hurt, "the Bane cornered me, I tried to dispatch it. It is both faster and stronger than the records had led me to believe. Word of mouth will generally…exaggerate a story…unless the fool that is passing it along actually fears the subject…" the wraith snarled something in her native tongue then pinned Ral with a stare, "I cannot take the Bane on my own. You have more weapons than you do hands. It would seem that your assistance may be required." She removed her long leather coat, and rolled her shoulder, testing the joint and finding it to be in working order despite the dark bruising that was already showing beneath her pale skin. The wraith then shrugged stiffly back into her armour-like coat, securing it with swift, precise motions.

**Ral arched an eyebrow at her as Aaren and the other marines took off running toward the Bane, "What exactly do you want from me? My assistance or my weapons?"**

The wraith gave him an appraising look, "Do I have to choose one?"

"**Your more likely to get one than the other... Well if you wanted a pistol..."**

The Queen went still, her body rigid as she carefully schooled her expression. She exhaled through her nose, then ground out, "I cannot do this on my own. It is larger and stronger than I am, and I am not in a position to simply disappear," she frowned, then spoke tightly through clenched fangs, "I…need help."

**Ral blinked, "Oh, the help's yours. I was debating what weapon to give you." He smiled at her, "Thank you for asking so prettily though."**

The Queen's eyes narrowed, then she visibly calmed herself, "I am versed with both arms and blade."

The automatic fire had slowed, the humans trying to conserve ammunition as they worked on finding a way to actually hurt the monster before them.

"**Fine have a gun," He tossed one of his pistols at her and took off in the direction of the beast, "Did your records have any advice on tactics for these things?"**

The Queen neatly snagged the pistol from the air, her fingers deftly falling into place. The gun let out a whine as the chamber charged, "the one time I encountered a Bane, I was in a fighter. I've been told that hand to hand combat is not advised."

She rolled her neck, her eyes closing briefly as a plan fell into place, "Doctor MacKenzie, there are drones in the Jumper, are there not?"

"We've got a few, but-"

"Good," the Queen interrupted as she turned on her heel and dashed after Ral toward the sound of gunfire.

It did not take them long to locate the skirmish grounds. Aaren and the marines were pinned down against some rubble, and the monster loomed over them. The Queen stepped into view with a shout, and placed two shots into the flank of the Bane.

The beast whirled around, its full attention immediately focusing on its favorite prey. The Queen didn't hesitate; she turned on a heel and took off down the hill toward the Jumper. The beast overtook her almost immediately. Her base instincts screamed, and she threw herself over a low wall as a scythe-like claw sliced through the space she had been half a second before. The wraith rolled to her feet, firing another shot into the chest of the monster as she continued toward the jumper.

**Ral, meanwhile, had run on ahead. He wasn't entirely sure what a drone was, but if it was an Ancestor weapon, chances were it would pack a punch. He'd seen the shuttle come down around here somewhere, but for the life of him he couldn't find it. There was nothing in front of him but an empty stone-paved courtyard. Maybe it was farther away than he had thought? He started forward and stopped with a resounding clang. **

"**Ow. Could somebody have mentioned the ship was invisible?" He peeled himself off the side of the Jumper while trying to staunch the flow of blood, "Queen?" He turned to find her bearing down on him with the Bane close behind.**

"Get inside!" she shouted, half twisting to fire some suppression shots behind her. The bolts weren't enough to take out the Bane, but they seemed to hurt enough to slow the monster.

**Ral turned back to the empty courtyard in front of him, "Great idea. Where is inside exactly?"**

The Queen came tearing down the hill, barely checking her speed as she snagged his hand in passing and hauled him into the Jumper. She fired off another shot, which was met by an enraged roar. The wraith hit the door control, then blinked when the ship remained still.

**Ral headed towards the cockpit, started pushing buttons, and frowned as nothing happened, "Do you know how to make this thing work?"**

"I don't understand," she frowned, then touched her radio, "Colonel, the Jumper will not respond," she managed to make her voice sound much more clam than she felt.

Just outside of the Jumper, the Bane began to sweep its head slowly from side to side as it searched for its prey.

**There was a long moment of silence from over the com, then Aaren replied in a strained voice, "Are you in the Jumper now? No- don't answer that. Of course it doesn't respond. No Ancient technology will respond to wraith. The Ancients keyed all their tech to a specific gene, so your race couldn't steal and use it."**

"**Thought it might have been something like that," Ral grunted. When the Queen looked to him he was elbow-deep in an access panel and switching crystalline circuits and cross wiring at a frenetic pace, "Care to give me a hand and open another panel?"**

The wraith lowered herself smoothly to the floor, turning and settling on her back as skilled fingers went to work. Within moments she was pulling panels from the under-side of the control consul, "You think you can get this working?" she asked as she shifted to the side and began working another panel.

**Ral paused and looked at her sideways for a moment before turning back to his work, "Are you kidding? Did you miss the part where I said I'm no expert in Ancestor technology? I have no idea what I'm doing."**

**The Queen glowered, "What do you intend to accomplish then?"**

**Ral placed another crystal and the lights dimmed. A voice started speaking in Ancient, something about a reactor going critical, and Ral looked down at the Queen and smiled, "I just assumed that something would come up."**

The wraith gaped at him as the self-destruct alarm began to whoop. Outside, the Bane turned its head sharply, seeming to look directly at them. It snorted, then charged.

The Queen scrambled to her feet, realizing that it was already too late, they would not be able to get through the back hatch before the monster was upon them. The alarm continued to blare, "Aaren's going to shoot me," she groaned as she put a shot through the front window. The Bane hit the back of the ship, the impact causing the Jumper to rock forward as the wraith used the butt of her pistol to break out the damaged window, "come on!" she shouted as she vaulted through the opening.

"**I'm coming," Ral followed her out the window, as behind them the Bane abruptly found the loud thing as the Jumper's cloak failed, the power being drained away to the rapidly overloading reactor.**

"**What was that sound I heard over the com?" Aaren's voice had gone from strained to angry as she realized that again, something was happening and out of her control, "What in bloody hell is going on over there? Why where you asking about the Jumper?"**

The Queen and Ral ran as fast as they could away from the soon-to-be-gone Jumper. They had managed to get a short way down the hill before the reactor blew. The shock wave lifted both of them off their feet and sent them tumbling forward.

The next thing the Queen knew, she was looking at the sky. She was sprawled half on top of Ral, their legs all tangled up in her long heavy coat, one of her arms was pinned under his upper torso. They lay still as she tried to remember how to breathe.

She could hear nothing but a high-pitched whine as the gruesome debris started to rain down around them.

**Ral folded his arms behind his head and crossed his legs, shaking them free of the coat as he took on the attitude of someone lounging on a beach somewhere, "You know?" He asked the Queen still sprawled across him, "On some level I'm really surprised that worked."**

**Aaren seemed to be riding some sort of emotional roller coaster, her voice having assumed a dangerous sort of calm as the Queen's radio chirruped, "Tell me you didn't just blow up our only way off this planet."**

She could feel by the vibration of his chest that he was talking, but all she could hear was the high-pitched tone. The Queen pulled her arm from under him and managed to sit up as Aaren and the rest of the marines came running toward them, their faces a mix of shock and horror as they took in the smoking wreckage of their transport and the monster bits that littered the area.

Aaren stopped in front of the pair of them, pointing a steady finger back toward the remains of the Jumper, as she spoke with animation.

The Queen simply stared at the fuming human as her head spun.

**Aaren reached down and pulled the Queen into a half standing slump, "You did, didn't you? Why did I ever think this was a good idea?"**

"**You know what Queeney? I think you're right- I think she's gonna shoot you. On the other hand Colonel, I'm the one who blew your ship," Ral sat up, trying to catch Aaren's attention, "if it makes you feel any better it was an accident."**

"**How? You have the gene? You know how to... to..." Aaren was beginning to see red and her hand was drifting towards her side arm.**

"**Nope, no gene. But it's sort of remarkable how little that matters when you're just messing with wires."**

She was just starting to be able to hear again, the sounds muffled around the high-pitched noise. The Queen didn't have to hear clearly to read the Colonel's body language though. She stumbled backward, pulling free of the Colonel's grasp while trying to get her feet under her as the world tilted crazily. Her skull felt as though it might split at any moment. The wraith managed to step on the hem of her coat and sat down hard. She held one hand out in front of her, as though she were trying to ward off the irate human, the other hand pressed to the side of her head as she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remain upright, "I wanted to use a drone to combat the Bane, I assumed Ral would be able to use the technology as he's human. It didn't work."

**Ral chuckled, "Don't know, I think it worked out pretty well," Aaren's head pivoted from the Queen to Ral like a turning rail gun turret, "What? It's dead isn't it?"**

"**And how do you suggest we get off this planet then?"**

**Ral shrugged, "Wait until somebody notices you're missing and comes looking for you?"**

**Kenna just rolled her eyes and started for the Queen, who had obviously been hit the hardest.**

The Queen still had her eyes closed as Kenna approached. The alien looked even more pale than normal, her brow was drawn and she tensed as another wave of pain crossed over her features.

"Come now, let's see," Doctor MacKenzie caught the wraith's arm, taking a pulse at the wrist. The Queen's eyes snapped open, the pupils hugely dilated. The wraith sat coiled, her entire body rigid, then something about her posture changed. It was a very subtle shift, but suddenly the individual that the humans were familiar with, was gone, and in her place was a predator.

"Human," she snarled, her voice low and husky, as her eyes narrowed in concentration, "back away."

**Kenna paused, "Anybody seen my trank gun?"**

**The marines looked at each other for a moment then Emily spoke up, "I think... I think it was in the Jumper."**

**Kenna nodded, "Alright, then I would like to invite everybody here who would qualify as edible to join me in backing away. Quickly."**

The Doctor moved back as far as she could, then released the Queen's wrist. The wraith moved smoothly, rising to her feet as she continued to stare too intently at the humans before her. She was still for a long moment, her face unreadable, then she took one slow, deliberate step back. She tore her eyes away from her prey and forced herself to walk back into the ruins.

**Aaren watched the Queen disappear into the ruins; then breathing deeply and counting to ten, she turned back to the marines, "See if you can find anything we can salvage from the Jumper to call home and tell them to come and get us."**

**Ral watched the marines start sorting through the ruble as Aaren surveyed their work. As she turned back toward him, he decided the potentially starving wraith was safer than the Colonel, and started after the Queen into the mist.**

She walked slowly, her head bowed. She had no destination in mind, she just had to get away from the humans. As she distanced herself from their anxiety and fear, she felt the grip of the hunger lessen slightly as her control grew. She found what used to be a courtyard, and sank to her knees as around her, large raindrops began to fall.

The wraith let her head hang back, the rain splattering on her face as she took a long slow breath, her eyes closed. She let the air leave her slowly, and with it went the hunger. She then bowed her head, steepled her fingers in her lap, and went absolutely still.

**Ral followed her until she stopped. He watched as she calmed, taking a seat on a piece of rubble at the edge of the courtyard, and then waited for a long moment to ensure the change was not temporary before he spoke, "You okay?"**

She remained still for several heartbeats, then she took another deep breath- the breath of one waking, "I am in control," she exhaled, then looked up at him from under long wet hair.

"**Which is good," Ral moved closer, though still staying out of arms reach, "But not really what I asked."**

She looked at him for a long moment as the rain seeped down the neck of her coat, then she straightened, gaining her feet and swaying slightly, "I will need to feed soon," she said simply, "it has been too long, and recently I have found myself needing to burn a lot of energy to remain whole."

The Queen looked down at her bloodstained coat, and slipped out of the garment. The Bane's scent was heavy in the air, and it set her on edge. Her clothing underneath offered less protection from the rain, but was also gore free.

"**This has been sort of exciting hasn't it?" Ral perched again on a piece of something that looked like it had, at one point in the distant past, been a statue, "So how long are you going to be able to hold it together?"**

"As long as I need to," she said stubbornly, though her voice sounded tired. She stripped off her drenched under coat, leaving her in a sleeveless long tunic, a corset, breeches, and boots. The extra leather and fabric became a heavy in weather like this, and feeling as she was, she did not want to be carrying the extra weight. The Bane was down, so it was unlikely that she'd need the armour.

**Ral cocked his head to the side, looking very much like a bird for a moment, "I somehow thought that Wraith would be better liars," he leaned forward as the bruises on her shoulder rotated through the entire bruise color spectrum before fading away all together, in the end almost seeming to be a dramatic reveal for the tattoo that spiraled over her arm and shoulder.**

"I will hold off as long as I can," she looked both better and worse. More tired, but healthier now that the bruising was gone, "I've not been in a situation where I could not feed before. It is…uncomfortable."

"**Starvation usually is," he walked up to her now and examined the place where the bruise had been and eyed the tattoo that now stood out in stark contrast to pale flesh, "So how long do you plan on sitting out here in the rain? The sun's going to go down soon and this place gets pretty cold at night."**

Her nostrils flared as her neared her and she closed her eyes briefly, then seemed to relax a little, "I was hoping to stay away long enough for the Colonel to regain her control as well. The Earth weapons, while primitive, are excruciatingly painful, and getting shot right now is not the desired outcome."

"**I can imagine. And the Colonel did seem pretty pissed. So what do you plan to do in the interim?"**

"Study."

"**Study what?"**

"The humans, their actions. I have spent almost thirty days in their company and I do not yet understand them. They act differently around me. Perhaps I will receive some insight if they do not know I'm watching," her tone implied a shrug, though her shoulders did not move.

**Ral paused for a long moment, seeming to consider whether or not to say something, "You know you won't be able to sneak up on them, right?"**

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, "why would you say that, human?"

**He blinked and then seemed to decide on something, "Because you can't. I guarantee that with in a few moments of you settling in to observe them, they'll know you're there."**

"You cannot make that guarantee."

**He grinned in a manner that was more predatory than any human had the right to achieve, "How much you wanna bet?"**

"You wish to gamble with me?" her anger was forgotten for a moment as she blinked in surprise.

"**Assuming you have anything worth wagering," He leaned back, seeming to consider her for a long moment, "It's always good policy to bet when you know you'll win."**

She curled a lip, exposing wicked fangs, "what you see is what I have, the humans have not left me with much."

**Ral grinned wider, "Well then... if I win, you tell me your name."**

For a brief moment it looked like he had pushed too far, then she gave him a small, wicked smile, "and when I win?"

**Ral shrugged, "Well, since that's not going to happen, name your forfeit."**

"When I win," there was no questioning her tone- this was an easy bet, "you will give me something of similar value- swear loyalty. It has been several thousand years since I have had a personal worshipper," she paused, alien green eyes pinning him in place, "I'll admit, you intrigue me."

**Ral raised one eyebrow at her, "You really want me attached to you for the rest of eternity?" He paused for a long moment, then smiled, "I didn't know you liked me that much. Deal. If, in the unlikely event you win, I will serve you faithfully- if probably not well."**

**He held out a hand palm up and waited for her to respond.**

She hesitated, looking at his outstretched hand, then clasped forearms with him in the style of the wraith, her feeding hand flat against his inner arm. His hand closed over her forearm, his palm pressed against a faint raised scar that was no doubt earned from past bargains, and they were honor bound. The Queen closed her eyes, feeling the heat of his bare skin against her feeding hand, as the hunger rose within her. She drew a long breath, exhaling slowly as she once again mastered one of her most basic instincts.

The wraith opened her eyes, nodded once, then glided back into the falling night, disappearing almost immediately in the rain and ruins. She moved silently, taking a winding path back toward where the humans were setting up camp.

**The camp was busy; marines bustling, getting backpack tents and coverings set up against the weather. A few poor saps stood watch in the pounding rain, and every so often one would check some sort of hand held and speak into his radio.**

**A moment of fiddling with her radio frequencies and the Queen could hear what he said, "The Wraith has moved closer to camp. I put her location about twenty feet in front of me... I think she's watching us."**

**Aaren's voice came over the radio next, "Point her out?" and the guard looked down at the hand held and then looked up and pointed right at the Queen.**

And just like that, Ral had won. She rolled slowly, coming to rest on her back as she stared glassy-eyed up at the darkening sky. The rain beat on her body, soaking her to the skin, but she paid it no heed.

**Ral perched on a piece of derbies over where she lay, "Now how do they keep doing that? I just don't know," He shook his head in an overly dramatic fashion. "I just don't know. It's almost like they can track your movements somehow. By the way, I win, pay up."**

"You knew," she whispered, her voice barely audible through the sounds of the storm, "they are tracking me," her head swam, and once again the pain returned, gently thrumming through her skull in time with the beats of her heart.

Alien green eyes came to a sharp focus on the Knight above her. The wraith's voice hardened, a keen edge cutting into the rain, "and you knew."

The Queen drew herself into a sitting position, then gracefully swept to her feet. She did not like the fact that this human had just taken advantage of her, in fact she was furious. But at the same time, they had made a pact, and she was not about to go back on her word. The human had made a bold play, and was about to be rewarded for his risk. She looked at him coldly for a long moment, her face entirely unreadable, then she gave him an elegant and severely formal half bow. The motion was practiced and fluid, conveying deference without compromising balance or dropping her gaze. Then she spoke words that had not crossed her lips in over eight thousand years, "I am Queen Altair, highborn of the Wraith."

"**Altair... nice name. And of course I knew. You think a runner wouldn't be able to identify the scar left by a tracker?"**

The wraith's brow furrowed, and she pulled aside her sodden hair and reaching back. Sensitive fingertips traced the ridges of her spine starting at the base of her skull and slowly working downward toward her shoulder blades. Just on the edge of her reach she discovered a thin scar, to the right of her spine. She hissed out a long breath and let her hand drop, then silently turned and walked into the human camp.

She wasted no time, and strode directly toward the marine who was studying a hand held tablet.

**The marine blinked down at his hand held as the Wraith dot started toward him. His head jerked up, and his eyes widened in panic as he saw the wraith coming at him across the open ground. The hand held slipped into a pocket and the rifle snapped up with well-trained, machine-like precision. That however was the only part of him that seemed calm. His voice cracked and stuttered as he spoke, "D-d-don't come any c-c-c-closer." **

**She could feel Ral's eyes boring into her back. His self-satisfied grin seemed almost to burn, even though it was just in her imagination. **

**Corporal Watcher showed up a moment later, "What's going on here, Private?"**

"**I-I-I don-don-don't..."**

The Queen stopped as the rifle snapped to position, her eyes narrowing as the human called Watcher approached, "The device, give it to me," the wraith nodded toward the marine's pocket as she held out her hand, palm up.

"**Private, stand your ground," Watcher snapped, "I'm not going to give you anything. What's going on?" The rest of the camp seemed to be taking notice. People were slowing and watching. Groups of people started piling up like rubberneckers on the freeway. **

"**Don't all of you have something that you should be doing?" Bradshaw's voice cut through the night making all of the soldiers freeze, and then scatter back to their various duties.**

"You will give me nothing," she Queen said smoothly, her eyes remaining pinned to the Private, "but your man here is about to hand me the device that you have been using to watch my movements."

"**Funny, you never struck me as delusional," Watcher snapped back at the Queen, "Now why don't you stop making demands and tell me what's going on before the Colonel comes out here and makes both of our lives miserable."**

The wraith bristled at the human's defiance, her eyes snapping to the female and narrowing dangerously, then she drew a measured breath and once again masked her features, "You have been tracking me," her tone was flat, each syllable was slightly clipped, as though she were trying to speak plainly to someone who wasn't particularly bright, "I have been given a radio, which I continue to wear. You can ask me where I am at any moment, and yet you find it important to follow me like prey. The humans of your group do not have to suffer this, and they are far more likely to become lost."

"**And far less likely to try and eat us in our sleep. Honestly the only thing that surprises me about the whole situation is that it surprises you."**

"And you expect a dot on a screen will keep me from taking you should I wish to do so? Even if your man is awake and watching, do you really think that I cannot simply keep him quiet?" she hissed, her voice dropping into a more throaty range as she unconsciously flexed her feeding hand.

"**Nope. I expect the following hail of bullets to stop you. Really. I'd ask you if you'd do the same thing, but since we borrowed the technology and technique from you I already know. Now deal with the fact that this whole trust thing is going to take some time. And in that time, were going to track you and keep an eye on you."**

"You borrowed nothing from me," she hissed, "my Hive had nothing to do with Runners. They were not our objective, nor did they hold any appeal. You can not even begin to comprehend how much you do not know about me, my Hive, or my kind."

They stood facing one another as the rain continued to beat down, the Queen was visibly trembling with rage, her jaw set tight as she struggled to maintain her composure, "I trust that when the time comes-"

The Queen stopped mid sentence, the blood draining from her face as her eyes darted to the ruins that were quickly being enveloped by the night and the storm. The wraith's head whipped to one side, her gaze coming to a sharp focus someplace beyond where the humans could see.

"What now?" Watcher asked, exasperation evident in her tone, "if you think you can get out of-"

"Silence!" the Queen snapped in a sharp whisper.

"**You know I'm getting pretty tired of your high and mighty..." Emily went down as something landed on her, screeching like warping metal, "Bloody fucking goddamned hell!" Watcher screamed, there was the sharp rapport of three rapid gunshots and the creature on top of her went limp. But even as she dealt with her attacker another one landed on the Private and two more rushed the Queen.**

They came out of the darkness like the things of nightmares. Creatures that looked like the Bane, but stood as tall as the human's hips. Shadows flickered around the edges of the camp, and somewhere behind them a human screamed.

The Queen didn't have time to think, she simply reacted. The wraith danced back as the first reached her, it's scythe like forelimb raking the air where her leg had been half a heartbeat before. Even as she moved backward, she struck out forward, bringing her closed fist down in a hammer-like blow that met the monster with bone shattering impact.

The Private writhed on the ground, twisting as the monster's claws cut deeply into his upper arm. He jerked violently, planting the muzzle of his P90 against the chest of the monster and pulling the trigger.

**The monster danced on the end of the barrel before falling to the side dead. Unfortunately for the Private, it took his left arm with it. The camp exploded into chaos as marines started to fire back on their attackers. Aaren appeared in the middle of the camp and shouting orders and pulling her people back into order.**

**Corporal Watcher bounded back to her feet spitting mad and covered in the dead creatures bodily fluids, with a pistol in one hand and a combat knife in the other.**

The Bane went down under the Queen's blow, but the second was on her before the first had hit the ground. She fell back with a grunt, the impact robbing her of breath as she grappled with the creature. She rolled, bringing the beast with her as she managed to catch it's armored head in her strong hands. She twisted violently, snapping the creature's neck. It fell limply to the ground.

The Queen was on her feet again in an instant, her breath short as once again the pain in her head momentarily robbed her of rational thought.

**Watcher quickly scanned the perimeter but no new monsters descended upon them from the darkness. Only a moment longer of hesitation and she sprinted to the side of the downed Private, removing her belt and tourniqueting the bleeding stump where the Private's arm used to be, "You still with us Queeny?"**

The wraith snarled briefly, then gave her head a sharp shake as though she were clearing her eyes of the rainwater, "I am here," came her reply, her voice once again in the lower register.

She reached out with her mind and found the rest of the human team, their fear a sharp contrast to the hunger of the Bane.

**Kenna and Aaren were hurrying across the makeshift camp, heading towards Watcher's position, followed by a dozen or so marines. Kenna was shouting orders back at them, "Grab at least one of the bodies and get it back to my "lab", keep it under guard. I'm not betting against it getting up and walking away on it's own." She dropped to her knees and slid on the wet ground to the Private's side and began working. She only paused once to glance at the wraith, a speculative look crossing her face that would have made anybody who saw it nervous. If anybody had seen it.**

The Queen stood on the edge of the small crowd, her eyes locked on Doctor MacKenzie as the human tended to the wounded man. Her head was pulsing, and it did not improve her mood, "Doctor," she growled when the medic straightened, apparently done with the Private, "We will have words."

**All the soldiery tensed at the Queen's tone. MacKenzie however seemed completely unconcerned, "Oh? What about?" She stretched locking her arms behind her back.**

"You put a tracker in me," her voice was dangerously quiet, "take it out."

"**Um... no," She finished stretching, "Why on earth would you think that I'd do that?"**

"We're not on your Earth," she growled, "you seem to wish to keep me whole, if you do not take it out I will find a way to do it myself."

**"You of all people should know that it's impossible to take out your own chip. Your people rather ingeniously designed them just for that purpose. Talk to the Colonel if you want it out. In the mean time, I have work to do," Without another word she turned and followed the marines carting her monster-bodies back into the camp.**

**Kenna called over her shoulder, "Or talk to Ral. He got his out somehow."**

The Queen turned on her heel and stalked into the ruins once again, ignoring her instincts that were screaming at her to stay with the well-armed marines and away from the potential horde of Banes.

She reached out with her mind, searching for Ral but once again his mind remained elusive to her, "Ral," she hissed, stepping over the dismembered body of a Bane. Alien green eyes swept slowly over the stone ruins and the bodies that littered the area.

"**You rang?" Ral's voice sounded from above her. He was perched on a still standing stone arch in the rubble, his two matching swords held loosely in his hands forearms resting on knees, both blades and his face smeared with blood.**

The Queen blinked at his choice of words, but decided to pass on clarification. She looked around the carnage of the small clearing, counting at least five Bane, maybe more, scattered about them. She raised one brow ridge at the Knight, and made a small sound of approval in the back of her throat.

"I need your help," the words came easier this time, though her eyes smoldered as she made the request.

**He raised an eyebrow of his own, "Another request for aid? Two in one day." He whistled. Both his blades spun in his hands, fluids flying, then the blades were gone. His heels popped out from underneath him and landed on his ass with a thump. "What do you need?" he sounded exhausted, he leaned forward, hunching over his legs.**

"I wish to be rid of this tracker," she closed her eyes as the headache tried to push its way to the forefront. A moment later the pain receded back to a more manageable level, "you were able to rid yourself of yours. Will you assist me with mine?"

**Ral sighed and rubbed his eyes, grimacing as his hand came away covered with blood, "Normally I'd be thrilled to help but I'm not sure I can."**

"And why not?" she sank to her knees, finding that sitting made looking up at him easier.

"**Because I doubt you could do what I did to get rid of it."**

She took a long steadying breath, wary of these kinds of statements from this particular human, "Which was what?"

"**I caused my body to reject it. Skin and flesh pulled away from it, muscle spasms pushed it out of my body, and eventually it just popped out." He shrugged, "It takes years of training to get that sort of control over one's body, and I... are you feeling okay? You look a little less green than normal."**

"I'm…holding it together," there was a ghost of a smile on her face as she used his words, but it slipped away quickly, "And you are right, I do not possess that degree of control. I did not know such a thing was possible in humans."

The Queen doubled forward, curling over her knees as a wave of dizziness hit her. She heard him move and held out a hand to stall his actions, not really trusting herself to allow him close, "It will pass."

"**Are you sure? It's not like you can feed from me..." He paused seeming to sense that she would respond badly to any implication that she needed a human's aid, "If you really wanted me to, I could go dinging in your back with a knife, but I'm no surgeon, and I wouldn't recommend it. It's more likely to make things," he gestured at her current state, "worse."**

The wraith started to nod then thought better of it, "you may be right," she said after a pause, her voice sounded weary. When she looked up again, her face was drawn, but her eyes were clear. The shift was startling, a true testament to what could be done when one was willing to burn through energy to ensure functionality. She straightened, sitting stiffly, her back erect as she once again looked over the ruins of the small Banes, "How many of them do you think are out there?"

"**My theory? There's a lot of them. I think that blowing up the big one may have been, in retrospect, a bad idea. Kenna will probably be able to tell you with a great deal more accuracy than I how many are out there."**

The Queen growled softly as she rose to her feet, "I can sense it all around, but not as individuals. It is…unlike anything I have felt outside of a Hive. Sometimes when Hives are far far away I can feel them as a whole, but this is different still." With that she started deeper into the ruins.

**Ral watched her stagger off into the darkness. He was tired, fighting things physically superior to one's self took a lot of energy, it was possible, if only just. But given the wraith's... uneven gait, he decided he should probably keep an eye on her. He heaved a sigh and then pushed himself to his feet and followed her into the night.**

The Queen didn't go far. She retraced her previous steps, quickly finding the ruined courtyard where her sodden coat and the pistol lay. While the garment was wet and heavy, it also served as a little armour between herself and the Bane. She shrugged into the wet leather, buckling the front as she turned to Ral, "You look tired," she picked up the pistol and primed the chamber.

"**I killed a lot of besties that are faster, stronger, and tougher than I am. That takes a lot out of you. I'd say 'you know what it's like' but I really don't think you do."**

This stopped the wraith in her tracks. She gave him an even look, her brow creasing slightly as she considered what he had said, "I have sparred with those that are physically superior to me, but it has been a long time since I have had to fight another wraith to such an end," she nodded slowly, "Come, let's get you back to the camp."

**.o0o.**

**Aaren was sitting in her tent, head in hands trying to figure out how to get them off planet when she heard a cough at her tent flap. She pulled it open to see a nervous looking Private, "What is it soldier?"**

"**It's Doc Kenzie Ma'am. She's... well... you should come and see this," the Private looked exceedingly nervous. Aaren stood and scrubbed her face with her hands, then followed the Private to the make-shift medical area that they had set up in one for the more intact ruins. The Colonel approached the doorway and stopped dead when she was able to look into the room. The mini-bane corpse wasn't a corpse anymore. The marines had managed to get some sort of restraints on the now very much alive creature. Kenna was sitting in front of it just barely out of range. She also had something in her hand... that was moving.**

"Kenna, what in God's name do you have in your hands?" Aaren's tone made it clear that whatever it was, she did not approve.

The Scottish doctor turned with a grin, "Fascinating isn't it?"

"Doctor MacKenzie," the Colonel's accent clipped her words as she spoke with much control, her upper crust British upbringing rearing its head, "you have precisely three seconds to tell me exactly what's going in here before I bloody well take you apart myself."

**Kenna glanced over her shoulder, a dangerously enthusiastic light dancing in her eyes as she turned to the Colonel and opened her hand. It was a Bane, no more than two inches tall, appearing almost cute as it wondered around her palm, seeming to be very affectionate as it butted it's head against her fingers and kept its sharper bits well away from her flesh.**

The Colonel could read between the lines, "No, absolutely not. We are not keeping this thing. Kenna, I'm serious."

**The dangerous glint solidified into a dangerous light, "Actually Sam, yes we are. You may have command when it comes to combat and threats to Atlantis security, but this is a scientific discovery; I have authority, unless you feel threatened by a creature you could step on."**

Samantha opened her mouth to rebut, then closed it again with a frown, "this is your responsibility Doctor, if anything goes wrong, it's on your head." Then she turned, and stormed out of the ruin, almost running into the Wraith and Ral, "Where have you been?" she snapped.

**Ral arched a tired eyebrow at the Colonel, "Killing your enemies oh she-who-has-no-authority-over-me. Speaking of which, if that's where the good doctor is, you may want to ask her what these things are."**

"She's calling them Bane, from what I gather they are something from the time before the Great War- putting this one somewhere older than ten thousand years and apparently they get back up when you blow them apart. If she has any more information, she can bloody well come to me."

The Queen stepped to the doorway, intending to speak with the Doctor, but instead was rewarded with a snarling Bane. She whipped the pistol from her belt and centered on the monster when something hit her hard and low from behind, bringing her to the ground.

**Her arm was stretched and twisted up behind her and her neck was pressed into the ground. Right in front of her face, Kenna's tiny Bane stood, feet braced between the Wraith and Kenna waving its scythe like limbs in a menacing manner. The larger Bane continued to roar and snarl as it struggled madly against its bonds.**

The Wraith panicked, instincts taking over as she heaved with her free hand, sending both her and her attacker rolling away from the Bane filled room. Her hand slid in the mud, loosing momentum and keeping her from being able to rise. The human that held her was strong. The Queen twisted violently, breaking the other's grasp only to be grabbed again. There were shouts as she grappled with her attacker on the ground, and she was vaguely aware of the sound of weapons being cocked. All around her she could feel the humans, she could sense their fear, she could taste the metallic tang of their blood in the air. There was a rushing sound, and then there was nothing.

**Aaren heaved herself to her feet, looking down at the bleeding wound on her bicep, "Right, note to self. Wrestle with wraith and end up bleeding," She shook her head and looked around at the assembled troops, "What the Hell was that all about?"**

**Ral shrugged tiredly, "She talked about feeling hungry. But when doesn't a wraith feel hungry?"**

**Aaren flinched, "I don't feel any different, do I look any older?"**

"No Sir," said Bradshaw as he looked from his bleeding commanding officer to the unconscious wraith in the mud.

"Strange," Kenna said as she appeared by Aaren's side, "it looks like she got a good hold on you, but nothing happened. I wonder if it can only be done through the chest. Or maybe…would you mind stepping into my ward for a few minutes, I'd like to run some tests," the Doctor looked down at the wraith, "you boys should bring her in as well."

**Ral coughed, "Maybe putting her unconscious in a room with things designed to kill her isn't such a good idea." **

**Kenna shrugged, "Put her in the corner over there and shoot the big one in the head again. That ought to keep it down for a while. Now come along Colonel, I want to see what's up with this."**

The men went about their tasks quickly, putting down the Bane and transporting the Queen. Nobody wanted to be too close when she next awoke, and in less than a minute she was securely cable tied to an exposed beam.

"Have a seat then," Kenna bustled around her improvised infirmary, pulling a couple of vials from her pack. She didn't have much on hand- most of her equipment had been on the Jumper, but she had enough to pull a few blood samples.

**She took the blood samples from Aaren, and a few more from the unconscious wraith and then went to work. "So I've learned some things about these 'banes'. If you're interested, I mean." She commented over her shoulder at the Colonel as she bent over the microscope she had apparently been hiding in her backpack.**

"Please," Aaren said as she removed her flack vest and BDU top. Her black tee shirt left enough of her upper arm bare to get to the wound, "go on. I'm not going anywhere until this is clean and plastered."

"**Well I've got bad news and worse news. The bad news is that these," she waved a hand over at the errant Bane once-again corpse, "Aren't really animals as we classically think of them. An animal is a collection of cells, each specialized to a certain task that together make up an entire creature. These Bane appear to be colonies of single celled organisms that have a rather remarkable degree of... flexibility? And have essentially learned to make a macro creature for there own survival. The macro creature functioning essentially like its own organism. So shooting one only keeps it down long enough for the single celled organisms to shuffle themselves around to repair the damage, then the macro critter gets back up and goes at it again. Rather remarkable method for survival. Makes me wonder how much was natural evolution and how much was the Ancient's genetic tweaks."**

**Aaren stared at the Doctor, bludgeoning her exhausted mind into understanding what the Doctor was saying and then trying to imagine how it could be worse, "And?" she prompted after Kenna didn't continue for a long enough that the Colonel felt safe assuming that the Doctor had become lost in her work.**

"**And?" Kenna looked up, confused.**

"**The worse news?"**

"**Oh... yes... When a collection of the single celled creatures are separated from their former macro critter for long enough, they redefine themselves as their own colony and macro critter. Thus this little guy here," She tickled the tiny Bane's stomach where it was rolling around on the table and it squirmed and made a noise that sounded distressingly like a giggle in obvious pleasure at the attention.**

"**So when I blew up the Jumper and sent all those monster giblets flying everywhere..." Ral spoke up from the corner.**

"**By now, have become a veritable army of Banes which, due to where we set up camp and the nature a blast based scatter pattern, should be surrounding us in a series almost perfectly concentric rings."**

"Bollocks," Aaren swore as she pulled on her flack jacket once again, the arm could wait. Her hand flew to her ear as she clicked on her radio and immediately ordered her soldiers to fall back to a defensible space. She was working on briefing them as she stepped out of the improvised med ward and back into the rain.

**Ral followed on her heels into the storm, "There's at least twenty in the ruins just outside of camp," his voice was thoughtful, "Several thousand spread around us from what I can recall of the blast..."**

"**Colonel." Aaren's radio demanded attention.**

"**I really hate that thing," she muttered to herself before clicking it on, "Go."**

"**Um... this is perimeter patrol. I just passed where the bane corpses ar... were supposed to be…and they're gone. I think I'm seeing some movement in..." the radio abruptly cut out to static and almost simultaneously they could hear screams echoing from where the sentry was supposed to be.**

There was movement in the shadows all around the camp, the glowsticks that the soldiers attached to their flack jackets giving off a chemical light that did little to cut into the darkness beyond the tents.

Weapons fire and more screams erupted from the far side of their little sanctuary. Aaren barked more commands into her radio to help stem the rising chaos.

Suddenly there was a tremendous roar of sound and the ground downhill of the camp erupted into light as the ship fire rained down upon the Bane.

**Ral looked up at Aaren from where he had dropped into a crouch, his swords held ready, "Friends of yours?"**

"**Yes." Aaren looked up at the ship with undisguised relief. The expression slipped off her face to be replaced with horror as she saw the name of the ship, "The Alcaeus... no... what the Hell is that ship doing here? How did... You know... I think I'd rather face the army of Banes. You go guys go on ahead. I'll wait here."**

Kenna ducked out of the tent, a grin plastered on her face as she clicked on her radio and shouted into the storm, "Commodore, your timing couldn't be better. We have 10 to beam out."

There was a brief pause and a crisp female voice replied, "Understood, beaming now."

The last thing they saw before the world disappeared in a flash of white light was a mass of teeth and scythe-like claws as hundreds of Bane swarmed into the camp.

**The remains of both teams were standing in an empty space on the ship, a woman in a Commodore's uniform standing in front of them. She was maybe five foot ten, blond hair cut to jaw length and pulled back in a short pony-tail. Clear blue eyes gazed over them before locking on the Colonel.**

"**I swear Sam. I spend more time saving your arse than I do doing my job." the Commodore's voice held something of humor but more of exasperation.**

"**It's great to see you too, sis," the Colonel grated at Commodore Tabitha Aaren.**


	4. Understanding

**AN:** **All right, another episode done. For those of you wondering (which I can't imagine is very many just yet) today's story intro is brought to you by Benton, the other half of the writing team. We decided that it might behoove us to demonstrate that I'm not actually a figment of Katie's imagination. As to the story itself: We get to learn about the Queen's past. And a little about Ral. Otherwise it's an episode of foreshadowing. There are clues here. We have a long term plot and I assure you there are things you should be wondering about. Have fun trying to find them.**

**(Also if you're wondering about the sub title Kenna threatened us with our very own custom tailored plagues if we didn't add it in. You'll see why.)**

**.o0o.**

**Understanding **

**(I Told You So)**

**By Katie Lipton and Benton Brahm**

**.o0o.**

**Ral stared at the back of the wraith's head as hard as he could. He'd heard the theory that when observing someone, you should watch and try as hard as you can to not think about them; treat them as part of the scenery. Because if you focus too hard, they'll feel your attention, your focus. He didn't think it really worked on humans, but the wraith was telepathic. It made somewhat more sense.**

**On the other hand, he'd been staring at her for the last hour since he woke up with a tazer burn on his neck and she hadn't moved. He'd punctuated his staring with yelling to try and wake up the other humans in the other cells but so far no results.**

**Maybe if he pictured her on fire...**

There was a sound, low and rhythmic. A repeating pattern that tapped on the edge of her consciousness, dragging her back to wakefulness. It took her a moment to realize that what she was hearing was the beating of her own heart. She reached out with her mind before she even opened her eyes, sensing the rest of her team nearby. And image popped into her head, crystal clear, she was on fire. She jerked awake with a gasp, finding almost immediately that her arms were bound behind her as she tried to push herself up.

"**Morning!" A cheerful voice pierced the silence and the image vanished, "You're the second one awake," Ral was wearing an orange jumpsuit that didn't really fit him. Another was folded up neatly next to the barred entrance. The floors were cold and made out of stone, she was in a cage again and perhaps most annoying of all, Ral was grinning like an idiot.**

She sat up slowly. Her whole body hurt, she was cold, and the human was grinning at her with far too much enthusiasm. She managed to roll on her hip to get her legs under her, the cold stone floor rough on her knees as she sat up. She gave Ral a level stare, her lip curling as she regarded him and his cheerful banter. It was at this point she realized that she was naked.

"**Sleep well?"**

Alien green eyes seemed to slide off of Ral and focus beyond his left shoulder for a moment. The wraith's focus slipped back to the Knight, "I do not remember bedding down here. Where are we?"

There was a groan in the cell to their left as Doctor Kenna MacKenzie began to stir, "Ugh, my bloody aching head. I think I got tazed, did anyone else get tazed? I…seem to be missing my clothing…"

"**I'm reasonably certain we all got tazed. And we're all naked, or at least everybody else is. I've got a new snazzy orange jump suit. If you're lucky like we are, there's some in your cell."**

**There was the sound of movement, "Well what do you know? There are. I've got Bradshaw and Watcher over here."**

"**I've got your Wraith. Anybody see the Colonel?"**

"Here," came a low reply from the cell across the hall, "bloody hell."

There was the sound of more movement and Corporal Watcher's face appeared between the bars of the small slatted window that connected the two cells, "whoa, naked wraith," she turned quickly, leaving them with a view of her black spikey hair, "I thought you said there were jumpsuits?"

"**Don't get dressed on my account." Bradshaw muttered from his position on the floor then yelped as Emily kicked him.**

"**Lieutenant, I think this is one instance when military law will forgive assaulting a superior officer. So if you don't turn around I will tie you into a pretzel and nobody would convict me," Emily growled.**

"**Oh dear God," Colonel Aaren's voice floated from her cell, "Of all the people here, why did they have to put me in a cell with my sister?"**

"**I love you to... Is that a tattoo?" a strange voice floated from the same cell.**

"**Pass back out so I can kill you in your sleep," Sam shot back.**

There was the sound of rustling cloth all around as the various team members all slipped into their jump suits. The Queen sat silently through all of it. Her head had fallen forward slightly as she tested her bonds. She could feel the Colonel approach the bars of the cell behind her. The wraith twisted slightly, exploring the handcuffs with the backs of her fingers as best as she could.

Once dressed, Kenna stepped over the prone form of Bradshaw and displaced Watcher from the small window, "Everyone all right in here?"

There was a popping sound, and the Queen caught her breath sharply, then she brought her hands around to the front, the cuffs dangling from her right wrist. She leaned forward, panting slightly as she carefully grabbed her left thumb and pulled gently. There was another pop as the joint slid back into place and she sagged a little, her eyes going glossy.

"**Um..." Ral raised his eyebrows at the Queen, "All depends on whether or not she puts her thumb back in joint," he paused for a long moment, "On the other hand, she's out of the handcuffs now. Who the hell puts a wraith in handcuffs anyway?"**

"Someone who doesn't want to get jumped while transporting a wraith?" Kenna quipped helpfully.

**Ral rocked back on his heels and actually looked at the Queen, "And she's got some sweet tattoos."**

"**Must we continue speaking of tattoos?" The voice of Sam's sister made it clear that her position on tattoos in general, and on her sister specifically, was none too high. **

"**Now, how do we get out of here? Anybody have a way out?"**

"**Maybe if I had some explosives..." Emily commented, "Wow this jumpsuit's itchy."**

"**I have a way out," Ral commentated casually.**

"**Well great. Get us the fuck out of here," the Colonel growled. **

"**Sorry, busy being mesmerized by wraith tattoos," he cocked his head to the side, "Do they mean something?"**

The Queen studied her left hand, slowly flexing her thumb, testing the joint. When she seemed satisfied, she focused once again on Ral, "which ones?" she asked, her eyes slipping off of the Knight and coming to rest on the hand cuffs that still hung from her right wrist.

"Ral- focus man," Colonel Aaren bit out as she adjusted the zipper of her jumpsuit.

"**Sam, stop yelling. We're all getting over the experience of being tazed, yelling won't help. Now Sir Knight, how can you get out?"**

"**I have lock picks. What about those ones on your ribs?"**

"Lock picks? How do you have lock picks? I know I had nothing on me when I woke up- they even took my blooming earrings," Kenna's voice floated from the other cell.

The wraith looked down at her torso, her fingers gently tracing the curved lines that ran along the ribs of her left side. The black lines curved on the diagonal, starting by her spine and slanting downward across her side and toward her stomach. There were three sets of scythe-like markings along her ribs, almost identical. The marking closest to her hip had three open circles in the expanse of the blade-like curve, the circles showing her pale green skin as a startlingly sharp contrast to the ebony of the ink. The tattoo repeated itself slightly higher, only containing two open circles, and the third mark, which ended just below her bust line, had one circle.

"The pattern identifies my family line- I am the third child of my Motem," her gaze dropped to the floor, "I was the youngest."

"**Well obviously they couldn't find my lock picks. What about the ones on your face?"**

"**Ral. Stop pretending to be Day, and get us the BLEEDING FUCK OUT OF HERE."**

"**Do you have to shout all your orders Sam?" The other voice asked.**

"**Tabby, don't tell me how to run my team."**

"**Actually, since this is a crisis situation and I out rank you, it's my team. Don't worry little sister, I'll get you out of here just fine, even if you do insist on using that ridiculous nick name."**

The Queen's head jerked around as the Colonel shouted her order. The wraith stood smoothly and walked to the cell door. She clasped the bars lightly as she studied the humans across from her, "You are the Colonel's sister?" her head tilted slightly to the side in a show of almost bird-like curiosity.

**"Commodore, this is our naked wraith, Queen, this is my bitch sister..."**

**The other woman had Colonel Aaren's blond hair, but longer, and somehow made the orange jumpsuit look elegant, "Really Sam, must you be so foul mouthed? It's embarrassing to the family. Now young man..."**

"**I liked 'Sir Knight' better," Ral commented having come up behind the Wraith and now was examining the tattoos on her thigh.**

"**Sir Knight then," The Commodore continued with an all together charming and pleasant smile that was stark contrast to Colonel Aaren's increasingly dark and threatening scowl. "Perhaps you could find your way to seeing us out of these cells?"**

"**Um... no..."**

"**Listen to me you little worm I will-" Sam was just getting started when her sister shushed her. The Colonel looked startled and angry, but trailed off into silence more out of shock than obedience.**

"**Why not Sir?" The Commodore asked.**

"**Because the Colonel, as I'm sure you're aware, has a quite carrying voice. I'm curious to see how long it takes the guards to react to the loud sound. Or if they do. I like knowing what I'm getting into before I get into it."**

"**See Sammy?" The Commodore turned her smile on her sister, "It's like I always told you. Yelling never accomplishes anything." The Colonel stared death back.**

Something flickered in the corners of the human's vision. A shadow of movement at the edge of the room, in the hall, in the other cells. Wisps of smoke-like opacity swirled then disappeared, only to reappear again.

The Queen let her forehead rest against the cool metal of the bars.

"**What was that?" The Commodore asked her voice becoming tense as she turned to try and find the movement she kept catching out of the corner of her eye.**

"**Aww, you scared Tabby? It's just the wraith fucking with us." Sam turned away from the bars and began to check over the rest of the cell.**

"**Yes Sam, I'm sure you're going to find a lose brick that will let you tunnel your way to freedom." **

"**At least I'm doing something. What's your plan?" Sam snapped. **

"**Using the resources we actually have. Is her pulling something like this, in these circumstances, normal?"**

"These circumstances aren't bloody normal," Sam growled as she finished her circuit of the cell, stopping at the door so she could get a good look at the wraith.

The alien sagged somewhat against the bars, her eyes closed. She was still unclothed. Aaren had initially only seen the marking around the wraith's right eye, and was mildly surprised that the wraith was inked from the left shoulder all the way down to her left knee, "What are you playing at?" she called across the hall, "you have some perverse need to make this situation more skew-whiff than it already is?"

The Queen sank slowly to her knees, her eyes still closed, her spine rigid. She shifted her weight slightly, leaning as though she were listening to something, then the shadows disappeared and her eyes snapped open. She was absolutely still for a moment, her eyes wide, then she let out a breath in a relieved sounding sigh.

"They've gone," the wraith's whisper was barely audible.

"**Um..." Ral looked down at the Queen, looking nervous for the first time, "You made them go away right? There's not another wraith around here is there?"**

Her expression clouded, her eyes unfocusing slightly as she let her gaze drop, "They've all gone."

**Ral started to back away slowly, "Are we going to start making sense anytime soon? We're all right here."**

The Queen wrapped her arms around herself, shivering slightly as she rose to her feet, "They've gone, but I remain."

She turned suddenly, her bare feet silent on the stone floor as she started pacing, her voice low, "Locked up again, everyone's here and I'm alone. Not like before. Surrounded," she curled her lip and turned to Ral, "by humans."

**Ral held up both his hands backing up quickly until his back ran into the wall of the cell, "I've never locked you up. Or been locked up with you. Remember the evil Colonel? She looked you up, be snarly at her."**

**Tabitha snorted, suppressing laughter, and Sam grimaced, "Thanks a lot Ral."**

The wraith turned, regarding the two women in the cell across the hall with a cold, calculating gaze. She hissed in a breath, wincing and bringing her hand to her temple as her body tensed, "Something is wrong," she said in a tight voice.

"**No kidding. We're locked in a prison by unknowns." Sam growled.**

"**With humans." Ral put in, doing a passable impression of a wraith voice, still backed against the wall.**

Cat-like green eyes widened and she turned slowly toward the Knight. She let her hands fall to her sides as she strode toward him, "How can this be? You were dead," she stopped at arms reach as she stared at Ral, "there's no way…my First?"

"**Uhh... Yes?"**

She moved quickly. One moment she was standing and looking at him, the next moment she had closed the distance and embraced him, "Deneb, I thought I'd lost you," her voice was muffled against his chest.

**There was a long silence as everybody stared at the Queen and Knight. Ral looked down at her for a long moment then slowly gazed up at the assembled human military officers and mouthed 'help me'.**

"**I think," Kenna whispered, "That what we're looking at is a rather severe hallucinatory episode. Usually caused by extreme hunger."**

"**Didn't we just feed her? What are the other options?" **

"**Significantly worse." Kenna said in a voice that sounded far too excited.**

"What if whatever made that Brain guy go nuts got passed to her. I mean, he was crazy," Watcher's voice was quiet.

The embrace lasted only seconds before the Queen visibly calmed, pulling her dignity around herself like a blanket as she stepped back, "Excuse me," she said, her cheeks flushing delicately as she moved smoothly toward the door and picked up the folded jump suit. She dressed quickly, never taking her eyes off of Ral.

**Kenna made a face, "I doubt it. From everything he said, I think that Cain did that to him. Apparently Brian did something to tick him off," Kenna glanced at Emily and turned back into the cell, "Maybe..."**

**Ral continued to watch the Queen, "Um... your looking a little greener than normal, you all right?"**

"I'm fine," the wraith said quickly, then caught herself, "Deneb, I felt you die, how could I be fine? How is any of this possible-" she blinked, her eyes narrowing slightly, "Ral?"

Colonel Aaren ignored the wraith for a moment, instead focusing on the Doctor, "What do you mean 'maybe'? Kenna, if you have any ideas about what the Hell is going on here, we need to hear them."

**Ral looked significantly relieved, "Yeah, I've been standing here, scared out of my wits, trying to figure out what you're going to do next."**

"**Well it's that virus... you remember how I said that it's still in her system?"**

"**Yes."**

"**You remember how I said that I had no idea how it would affect her, especially if it started mutating as viruses are want to do?"**

"**Yes."**

**Kenna waved a hand back at the Queen expressively, "There you go."**

The mask settled quickly and completely, and once again the Queen that they knew looked around at the rest of the team, her face unreadable, "You were my First. Not that I thought you looked like him, or sounded like him, you _were_ him," she stepped to the small window and held the Doctor's gaze, "My kind do not get sick. We do not grow feeble minded with age. How can such a thing be happening?"

**Kenna shrugged, "Nature will find a way."**

**Bradshaw rolled his eyes, "Which means what exactly?" **

"**It means 'what do you want from me when I have nothing to work with but an orange jumpsuit and no access to the patient?' Oh and before I forget, I told you so."**

The Colonel and the Wraith both growled, then turned to glare at one another.

The Queen broke her glare with the Colonel and stepped closer to the window, some part of her hoping that somehow the doctor would be able to tell more with a closer look. She knew she was being foolish, but the thought of something happening to her that was beyond her control frightened her more than she was willing to admit.

Kenna stared at the wraith for a moment, recognizing the silent plea in her eyes. It was a bit disconcerting to see a flicker of such a human emotion on the alien's face. Then it was gone.

The Queen's eyes narrowed as another wave of pain washed through her, leaving her breathless. She bore it in silence. As it passed she turned and began to pace once more.

**Ral had not moved from where he stood pressed into the wall hands raised, "Do you want to sit down? You really don't look so good."**

"How would sitting accomplish anything?" she growled, her voice throaty. As she turned again to walk the length of the cell she stopped, her gaze shifting to the hall, "How dare you show yourself here?" She snarled as she stalked to the door, her attention focused on something unseen at the end of the hall.

**Kenna nodded in a self-satisfied manner, "Complete psychotic break. She can't tell the difference between reality and her imagination any more. It'll get worse with time."**

"**Well that's bloody great," Samantha growled, "Ral get us out of here."**

"**And let the crazy wraith out? Yeah that's a great idea Sammy. Let me do the thinking alright?"**

**Ral however, ignored both Aarens' and moved up behind the Queen to whisper to her, again doing his impression of a wraith, "Altair, who is it?"**

There was a long pause, then she turned to him, her brow creased as she met his eyes, "All these years and I still can't get inside your head…" a smile quirked one corner of her mouth before she abruptly sobered, "The Queen," the whisper was almost sub-vocal, but at the same time, the way she spoke somehow implied there was more information that two simple words.

"**What is SHE doing here?" Ral's voice was still wraithy, and carried a certain amount of vitriol. The rest of the humans shuddered.**

"I do not know, she was dead- but then again so were you," she pressed the base of her palms against her eyes, lowering her hands and blinking hard to clear them.

"You tried to use me," Queen Altair spat, "you manipulating scum." She curled a lip at whatever she heard in response, "Of course they don't know, do you think I'm stupid?"

**Sam slammed into the bars of her cage, "What aren't you telling us?"**

**The Commodore dropped her head into her hands, "Sammy please shut up. There is no way one of your temper tantrums is going to help the situation."**

**Bradshaw and Watcher glanced at each other, "She calls one of the Colonel's 'scare the balls off the spec-ops hard-asses' rants a 'temper tantrum?'"**

**Watcher shrugged, "Insulating effect of sisterhood?"**

The Queen started at the Colonel's shout, then shook her head sharply, refocusing on the human, "Why Colonel," her voice had a melodic quality to it that implied a smile, "there are many things you do not know."

"**And which one specifically are we talking about today?"**

The wraith walked, no, sauntered to the cell door, then gracefully sat. This time she did smile, "If I am unwilling to speak to something that isn't there, what makes you think I'll tell you now?"

"**Because I am here," Colonel Aaren's voice had gone cold, "And if I don't think I can trust you, I will make your life a living Hell. I look forward to it," She turned and stalked back into her cell disappearing quickly from the other's view. Her sister sighed and turned to follow her. Kenna, Watcher, and Bradshaw had gone silent.**

The Queen didn't know if this "hell", but the human's tone had been clear enough. The wraith tilted her head and reached out with her mind, gently touching the Colonel's consciousness. She jerked back as though she'd been slapped. Eyes narrowing she called across the hall, "If I am to speak with you, I would see you. Sharing thoughts with you is…prickly."

"**Well I'm so sorry that you find that difficult," The Colonel's voice drifted out of the darkness of the back of her cell, "Does that oh so polite request mean your actually going to answer the question or just be more difficult?"**

The wraith sighed, "I have the feeling," she began softly, her lack of volume enticing the human to draw nearer, "that by the end of this, we will know many things about one another."

"**Captivity does that. I know at least one secret of mine that will be out before we get out of here." Ral spoke softly but everyone heard him clearly.**

Queen Altair half turned to him and arched one delicate brow, then drew in a sharp breath as images flashed through her head. She was on the other Queen's Hive, about to work the Alliance. The other Queen had hinted to leverage, but had shown nothing. She played a very clever game.

The wraith stood abruptly, reaching for the bars to ground herself. She could feel the metal at her palms and the stone at her feet, "Lieutenant, do you recall what I said when the recorded transmission was discovered on the Hive?"

Bradshaw's voice came from the far side of the small window, "that wraith politics are confusing? Oh, and that you knew the guy in the video."

"Precisely."

"**I don't remember!" Ral spoke up cheerfully, "I wasn't there. Anybody want to help me out?"**

**The Colonel reappeared out of the shadows of her cell, "And? What of it?"**

The video file had been destroyed, and no wraith would take the human's word for more than rumor. There was very little damage the Lanteans could do with the information. Besides, they had even eased her hunger with a "terrorist", and in some way, that put her in their debt.

"The Queen whom I was allying with tried to double cross me. She wished the resources of my Hive. She had a…video. A rather incriminating bit of footage with one of our High Commanders, working with several of the Lantean humans," she paused, muttering something in wraith, then seemed to come back to herself, "I am here because of that transmission, upholding an Alliance that was no design of my own," she paused again, knowing she was already in too far to back out, "The High Commander is my Grandsire." One could not miss the note of pride in her voice as she spoke of her family. And just like that, the humans around her knew more of the Queen than the wraith on her ship had, save but one.

**The moment of silence hung thick in the air before Kenna shattered it like cheep glass, "At this point Dr. Day would make some pointed observation about the presence of feudalism in humanoid cultures. I however have the joy of being employed in a hard science. Now on to more important topics: like getting us out of here."**

The wraith closed her eyes and once again let her forehead rest against the coolness of the metal bars, "you are addressing the wrong topics, Doctor. You ask, 'how do we get out?' when you should be asking, 'how did we get here?' and, "where are we now?' You cannot hope to go anywhere if you do not have a starting point."

Watcher leaned over to Bradshaw and murmured, "is it bad that that totally makes sense?"

"**Yes. You've contracted wraith thinking, you'll have to be put down."**

**Emily rolled her eyes, "I will tie you in knots marine."**

"**However much that's true we will need to get out of these cells before we can find any of that out."**

"**What worries me," Ral spoke softly, without his usual humor, "is 'who captured us?' We've been very loud in here. Any set of guards that actually want to keep us, would be trying to keep us from talking to each other so we can't make a plan to escape. It's been almost twenty minutes, nobody's come to check on us. So what we really ought to be asking is 'why haven't they?'"**

Colonel Aaren frowned, the Knight made a good point. It was obvious that they were all awake and active, what would their captors have to gain by allowing them such freedom of communication?

"There's nobody here," the wraith whispered, "all alone with the humans," she shoved hard against the door, her bare feet sliding on the stone floor of the cell.

"**Also," Ral said, much more in his normal tone, "There's no way in Hell I'm opening this cage up and letting crazy wraith loose in god knows where."**

"**So what do you propose we do then?" Colonel Aaren demanded from the back of her cell.**

"**Well I could try to incapacitate her..." the Knight looked doubtful.**

The wraith stopped pushing on the door and turned slowly, her face unreadable. A slow, fierce smile graced her features, "you could try."

**Ral rolled his eyes, "Now you decide to pay attention to what's real. Look your hallucinating, your not reliable, a moment ago you were talking to a dead Queen and kept calling me Deneb. You're a danger to everybody here and if that doesn't move you, you're also a danger to yourself. What do you want me to do?"**

The smile disappeared and she started to pace again and stopped herself with a frown, "I don't know," then her expression darkened as she shouted into the hall, "ENOUGH! You are not real. You are not here. I felt you die- now leave me be."

She turned her back to the hall, facing the Knight. She shivered slightly, hugging herself, "It is…difficult to remain focused."

"**My point exactly. There is nothing in that hallway. And I'm not opening that door while you are free to act on your... crazy."**

"**'Delusions' is the technical term." Kenna threw in.**

"**Not helping." Ral threw back.**

"**You know what we really need?" Emily leaned toward Bradshaw and spoke in a stage whisper.**

"**No, what?"**

"**Popcorn. 'Cause this is better than any Friday night drama I ever saw."**

The Queen flinched, her eyes narrowing slightly, but she remained quiet. She put on a remarkably good show of being level headed as she ignored whatever she was seeing in the hall and remained focused on the man before her, "Then I will stop these, delusions, and we can leave."

**Kenna snorted, "You can't just 'stop' something like this. It comes from a chemical imbalance. In your case, probably brought on by a virus running rampant through your brain: a formerly custom tailored virus that has now mutated to all fuck. You're not getting better until you get treatment. Thus the problem."**

The wraith kneeled and bowed her head, seeming to ignore the Doctor. She drew a slow breath, then exhaled as she steepled her long fingers and closed her eyes. For a long moment, nobody said anything.

"Ral," Colonel Aaren's words were pitched low, "How were you planning on opening your door?"

**Ral rolled his eyes again more dramatically, "Like I said I've got lock picks."**

"Care to share with the rest of the class?" the Colonel raked her hand back through her cropped blonde hair in frustration.

**Ral sighed, "Fine," Then under his breath, "This always sucks." **

**He pulled down the top half of his jump suit and took a deep breath, then dug his fingers underneath his rib cage. He grunted once, savagely, and pulled down on something, then with his other hand he pushed the skin of his abdomen in until something thin burst through from the inside. He gripped it with his fingertips and slid it out of his body. He exhaled explosively and then repeated the procedure on the other side of his ribcage. A moment later he had a blood-covered, ceramic tension wrench and a tumbler rake.**

**He held them up with a tired, triumphant smile, "A true Knight is never unarmed."**

The cells were absolutely silent for a long moment as everyone stared at the smiling Knight and his gore-covered lock picks.

Corporal Watcher looked a little pale, her mouth open slightly as she looked for the right words.

"That," Bradshaw said into the cavernous silence, "was amazingly creepy- but useful. Dude, you're hardcore."

"You said 'always,'" Kenna interjected, "you mean you've done this before? How often do you have to use something like this? How long will it take for you to recover?"

"Kenna!" Colonel Aaren's voice was not raised, but it cut the Doctor off cleanly, "let the man work. You can ask him all the questions you want later."

**Ral shrugged, "It happens every so often. The bad part is putting them back. So what do I do about..." he gestured at the Queen.**

Watcher grabbed Bradshaw in a loose chokehold and maneuvered him so that the pair of them could be seen through the small window. Kenna shuffled back quickly so as not to be trod upon.

The Aaren sisters seemed to fall into an animated, but silent argument; Samantha making a fist, and Tabitha pantomiming someone moving very silently.

"It is a Human error to assume that because you are not speaking, you cannot be heard." The multi-tonal voice was low, the wraith unmoving as she spoke.

**Ral stared at them with a completely bewildered expression on his face as he looked back and fourth between them all, and then he looked down at the Queen with an expression that said nothing so much as, 'what the fuck?'**

The Queen opened one eye and chuckled softly at the look on his face. She started to say something, but her world lurched out from under her, and for a moment she was falling. She hit the stone floor of the cell and scrambled to her feet, her eyes wild.

**Ral watched her go down and pop back up with a thoughtful look on his face. Then shrugged and lunged forward, his fist impacting solidly with her temple. The force of the blow alone was enough to knock her off her feet.**

**The Knight waited for a moment, and when she didn't immediately pop back to her feet, he looked up at the rest of the humans and smiled. Bradshaw gave him a thumbs-up. **

**Emily rolled her eyes and whispered, "It's not that impressive, she's sick."**

**He moved to the cell door, and a moment later the door swung open.**

She hit him low and hard, her momentum carrying them both into the hall to impact with the door of the Aarens' cell. The wraith brought him to the floor, her fingers bruising the meat of his shoulders as she pinned him. Then the Queen jerked to the side with a grunt as though she'd been struck. She rolled off of him, twisting violently as though she were avoiding another blow. The Queen was back on her feet, moving quickly down the hall as she battled whatever it was that she was seeing. Her movements were dangerously graceful, like some bizarre dance as she ducked and weaved. She half spun, her hand going to her thigh as she hissed in a breath, then she ducked once more and sprinted down the length of the hall before disappearing around the corner.

**Ral stared after the wraith, then sprinted off after her, down the hallway and out of sight, leaving the rest of the team staring at the bloody lock picks that he had dropped out of reach of any of the cells. **

**Sam stared after him for a long moment then addressed her sister without turning around, "I have no idea how, but I'm sure this is your fault."**

"**Funny. Isn't he supposed to be part of your infinitely loyal command?" Beth asked sweetly.**

"**Just shut up."**

.o0o.

She ran until she thought her lungs would burst, her limbs growing shaky with fatigue. She could hear the sounds of pursuit behind her, but a glance over her shoulder showed no Bane in sight. The Queen all but fell into the semi sheltered recess of a shallow gorge. She pressed herself low, leaning back against a rock as she fought to regain her breath. Teeth bared, she pressed harder on her leg, trying to staunch the flow of black blood that oozed between her fingers and made her hands slick.

**Ral chased her down the long corridor of the cellblock, she slammed open an unlatched door without seeming to notice that it was there. Then ducked sideways and vanished from sight. Ral followed her through the door and was confronted with a sea of empty, long-forgotten desks made of steel and bolted to the floor.**

**The Knight threw his head back and let out and exasperated sigh, there was a door at the far end of the room but it was latched so he felt it a pretty good bet that the Queen was in the room somewhere. He began searching, looking under and behind desks, "Queen?" Nothing, "Queeny?" He paused for a moment, and then, in a voice that would not carry past the room, "Altair?"**

She was feeling light headed- she'd already lost a lot of blood. Her head lulled back to rest against the rock as her vision swam. Then she saw him.

Queen Altair smiled weakly at the tall, lean form of Deneb as he slid down the ravine to her side. His long, straight hair was tied back from his face, the thin braids that she had carefully plaited that morning lost among the rest of his white locks. There was blood on his angular face; a small cut on his brow. His high cheekbones and fine nose were so familiar- so much like her own. His eyes matched hers, a luminous pale green. They looked empty. Something was wrong.

"Deneb…brother," her head dipped forward and she jerked it back as she fought to remain focused. Her leg throbbed white hot, and her head echoed the pain with each rapid heartbeat. There was a sound near by- footfalls. She flinched, the motion sending a fresh wave of pain searing through her head. She sucked in a breath between pointed teeth.

**Ral jerked his head up as he thought he heard a soft sound. He paused for a long moment, then called out again. There was a long silence before there was a loud clang. The knight jerked around and ran over the tops of the desks, dropping down back to the floor as soon he spotted a wraith feeding hand flopping out from underneath a desk.**

**He found her tucked under the foot well of a desk, one hand clutched her leg as though she were injured. She was focused on something next to him. He took the time to double check and determined that, in fact, there was nothing there, before turning back to her and griping her shoulder, "Altair, you need to listen to me. You are not injured. Who ever you're looking at isn't there. You need to focus and get back to a place where we don't have to worry about you hurting yourself. Understand?"**

The wraith continued to stare ahead, her eyes tight as she silently pleaded with someone just to the right of the Knight's shoulder, then ever so slowly, her focus shifted, "Ral?"

"**Hi there!" Ral smiled at her, "Yeah it's me. Did you hear what I said? You're hallucinating, you're not injured, and there's nobody else here," He gripped her arm and shoulder and pulled her to her feet. "See? You're fine, lets get you back to your cell where you won't get hurt by whatever you think you're seeing."**

The Queen hissed as her leg took her weight, her head swimming and the edges of her vision blackening, "I know what I'm seeing is not real. It can't be real. But that doesn't seem to matter."

She looked down at his hand, her brow creasing as she took half a step back and straightened. She could feel the blood drip down her leg and pool on the floor around her feet, "I cannot go back there. Can't be locked up again…"

**The Knight sighed, "Well then I don't know what to do with you. Leaving you out here wandering around isn't safe."**

She seemed to consider his words for a moment, then her eyes went wide, the cat like pupils darting back and forth, "No," she breathed.

"Please…don't do this. I can't do this again," She jerked back, pulling away from the Knight. She ran into the desk that she had sheltered under, going over backward. As she regained her feet, she was back on the Hive. The Queen stood before her, her face a garishly smiling mask as she began negotiations. Altair had done this before, knew where this was going, "Don't do this!" Her cry was a half strangled sob as she bolted from the room.

"**Crap." Ral watched the Queen bolt through the desks and smash through the latched door, splintering it into matchsticks and disappearing down another corridor. The Knight sprinted after her. He caught up with her a few yards down the corridor and managed to grab her by the collar, using her own momentum sling her backward into the corner of a T-intersection. The Queen bounced off the wall, only to be slammed back again as the Knight pinned her there, "We really need to stop meeting this way," he gasped, "And you really need to stop running all over the place."**

"Let me go!" she jerked sideways as his weight settled on her more solidly, pinning her to the wall. For a moment her eyes came to a sharp focus, "Ral…please."

Altair went rigid as the Queen sat on her throne. Any moment now. She could feel her wraith, her Hive. She could sense their thoughts, their emotions. Her First was anxious- he didn't like that she had to meet with the other Queen alone.

She let her head drop forward onto his shoulder as her knees gave out, "I can't do this again- can't loose them." All semblance of control was gone, she was terrified and it was obvious.

"**Altair, you aren't losing them again. It's all in your head." Ral looked down the hallway and froze. **

**At the end of the hallway was an open door, leading to what looked like a mess hall. Unlike every other room in the complex, this one showed signs of habitation. A dozen humans were present, and they were all dead. A head was crushed by a fallen light, a throat cut by tripping onto an unfortunately placed kitchen knife, electrocuted by a live wire falling into a water cup, all of them dead by increasingly unlikely accidents. In the middle of the room was Ral's S-curved sword only an inch out of the sheath, "And we really need to get out of here," he continued, "Now."**

"We can't get out," she jerked her head back, his arm remained across her throat, keeping her pinned against the wall, "It's happening again," she moaned, "there's no-"

Her eyes went wide, horror showing openly on her features. She grabbed the front of his jumpsuit, hauling him forward, "Ral," she whispered, "Help me."

And then they died.

They all died.

**Ral flinched backwards as she screamed only inches from his face. As he pulled back the Queen helped him away and ran down the corridor toward the room at the end of the hall where all the dead and the sword still lay. Ral lunged away from the wall barely managing to catch a handful of the wraith's jumpsuit sending them both crashing to the floor. **

"**Do NOT go any farther down this corridor," he spoke in soft dangerous tone, "Not unless you wish to join your Hive and this Deneb," he bounced her off the floor slightly, "You get me?"**

She shivered violently under his hands, but did not struggle further. She was still for a long moment, then she gave him a single, jerky nod. She swallowed hard and shut her eyes tight, "Ral…I...understand."

**Ral nodded back, "Good." He took a deep breath, "You stay here. Do as I say not as I do." **

**Ral pushed himself to his feet, wiped his hands on his pants, and sprinted down the hallway. As he ran down the hallway, the lights over him burst, showering sparks down over him setting his sleeve ablaze. A brittle patch of floor broke under his foot tripping him, he rolled and managed to stop himself just before his momentum sent a protruding screw into his eye. As he ran across the room, the room seemed to conspire to try and kill him, until finally he vaulted onto the table and slid across the top, snatching up the sword and slamming it back into its sheath. He dropped off the table and came sprinting back out of the room, sword clutched to his chest, destruction following behind him until a seemingly arbitrary point in the hallway just ahead of the Wraith Queen.**

"**And that," Ral commented, breathing hard, "is why we don't go into the room with all the dead people."**

The Queen watched him charge in and out of the room with glassy eyes. The wraith wasn't sure what was real and what was not. All she knew was that she hurt. She hurt all over. She tried to swallow, her throat dry and raw.

She sat up slowly, hugging her knees to her chest. It was then that she realized that her cheeks were wet. She dashed the back of a hand viciously across her eyes, anger and embarrassment fighting for control as she visibly tried to slip on an impassive mask. It held for a moment.

They were all dead.

They had been dead for almost a month. Pale green, cat-like eyes squeezed shut as she drew a slow breath, "Ral...how...why are the humans...?"

Her gaze slid past him to the room full of bizarre accidents and human corpses. They began to move with the jerky motions of nightmares, empty eyes staring, bloody fingers forming claws. She blinked.

They were all dead.

She struggled to focus on the Knight before her. She tasted bile, swallowed hard, took a breath, "what happened here?" Her voice was almost steady.

"**People played with forces that they didn't understand. And those forces bit them," Ral took a deep breath and his hart beat slowed, "Sometimes it happens that way, price of... do you smell snow?"**

She scrubbed her hands over her face and concentrated as the pain began to recede a little, "Snow?" she focused, breathed deeply, "I don't know, but I do smell fresh air."

She regained her feet, feeling only a little unsteady as further questions about said forces were forgotten as she turned slowly. Once again a light draft of cool clean air brushed past them.

"**So where is it coming from?" Ral looked around, then sighed as he spotted the open door on the far side of the mess hall. A breeze blew out of the open door carrying the scent of tree sap and open air upon it. A single snowflake came floating through, bobbing and sliding along the track of the air currents. It danced across the room, oblivious to the carnage below it until it was sucked into the hallway and spun in between the Knight and the Queen and disappeared further down the hall. **

"**Huh." Ral stared after the floating ice crystal, "I think we found our way out of here. Unfortunately..." the Knight looked back across the room that had just tried it's best to kill him.**

"What's so unfortunate?" the cold air seemed to help her focus. Her eyes were intense as she looked across the carnage and to the rocks and white drifts beyond the open door, "They're already dead. None of them can hurt us, unless there is something in that room that I'm not seeing."

"**It's not there anymore but the effects linger. It's..." Ral looked back at the Queen his eyebrows shooting up, "Did you not just see what happened in there? What I went through to get this?" he hefted the S curved sword.**

The wraith gave her head a sharp shake and focused once again on the Knight, "I'm not sure what I saw. When they," green eyes flicked to the corpses, "got up and started moving, I imagine that wasn't accurate, though the rest wasn't much more reasonable. It was almost as if the room was intentionally trying to harm you."

"**...Yeah lets go with that. Only replace harm with kill."**

The Queen met his eyes, her gaze cool and calculating, "whatever killed those men, was strong enough to try to end you as well. How do you know that it is gone now?"

**Ral glanced back at her, "Cause I'm the one not hallucinating?"**

She tensed as she her eyes flicked past his left shoulder and down the hall, "your point has merit," she sounded distracted, "What now?"

"**We wait."**

"How long must we wait?" she continued to look past him.

"**I have no idea, it depends on..." he paused and looked over his shoulder, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, "What are you looking at?"**

"Something that you will, no doubt, tell me isn't there," her words were a mere whisper as she watched her brother approach smoothly. She knew what was coming, and managed to stifle most of the gasp when she felt the knife blade slip between her ribs. The Queen jerked back, her rational mind telling her that nothing was there and the pain she was feeling wasn't real, the other part of her knowing that Deneb was about to save her.

**Ral watched as the Queen's eyes widened, then she gasped and clutched her ribs as though in pain. Ral briefly considered trying to talk her down again but discarded the idea after remembering how well that worked the last time. **

**The Knight sighed, he reached out and grabbed in front of the Queen's hand where a wrist would be. He struck upward with his palm where a face would be. He moved forward, away from the Queen, twisting his hand, pulling the imaginary hand away from where the weapon would be. At the same time his leg swept through where a leg would be. He lunged forward slamming down his heal where a throat would be. **

**Having defeated the hallucination he turned back to the Queen and gripped the air where the weapon handle would be, and pulled it away from the Queen's body with a sharp jerk and tossed the imaginary whatever-it-was behind him, "You alright? So what was that exactly?"**

It happened as it had before: Deneb seeming to materialize out of the shadows and grabbing Vega. Her First dealt with her brother quickly, his movements efficient as he incapacitated the smaller wraith. Vega had never been tall.

She straightened, sucking a breath between sharp teeth as she looked down, honestly surprised that there was no black blood on the material of the jumpsuit, "My brother, Vega, the night he tried to kill me. He would have had me too, if Deneb had not stepped in," she closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again Deneb stood before her, his expression concerned.

Her face showed a flicker of surprise, followed by mild worry, "My First," she reached out and gently touched the Knight's face, her palm just brushing the human's cheek and jaw line. The movement was familiar, practiced; a gesture of fondness that one would not normally associate with a wraith, "where did Ral go?"

"**I..." Ral's brain had ground to a halt, and he was busily trying to kick it back to working again, "I have no idea." **

**Then his brain turned over and he got an interesting idea, he took a deep breath and faked the wraith voice again, "Who is this Ral?"**

"One of the humans," she stood up on her toes and tilted slightly as though she were trying to look past him and down the hall. The Queen dropped back on her heels, standing flat as she turned her attention fully back to her oldest brother, "he calls himself a Knight of Ascension," a small smile turned up a corner of her mouth as she closed her eyes with a sigh and leaned forward to rest her forehead against her older brother's chest. Images of the Knight flashed through her head- the way he fought, the way he stood, the strangely colored beads he wore braded into the longer lock of hair over his left ear, the swords he carried and how they seemed to disappear on his person, his utter lack of fear. Several things that set him apart from all of the other humans that she dealt with, "he is very different from the others, though he seems content working with them."

**Ral/Deneb, put an affectionate hand on her shoulder, "Fascinating. But what do you think of him? Can you trust him?"**

She laughed, true humor making the sound almost warm as she drew back and offered him a rueful smile, "I cannot see inside his mind. I have never before met a human with such…resistance. He seems sincere, though I believe he thinks more like wraith than human; working strictly within one's word and letting others form the wrong opinions. He is quite clever. But can we really trust any of the humans?"

**Ral/Deneb nodded, he supposed this could be an opportune time to plant some suggestions about who to trust, but instead held his peace, "Well then let us find this Knight of Ascension. Were the two of you discussing your next move? Perhaps he moved on without you."**

The smile slipped from her face, "we were going to get out," she shifted her weight slightly back toward the room full of corpses, "through there." Her bare feet made no sound as she padded toward the doorway, stopping just short of entering the room, "watch yourself, my First- things may not be as they appear."

**His eyebrow's shot up, "Are they ever?" Ral suppressed the laughter at the idea of her warning him away with his own warning. "Well then, shall we?"**

She stepped forward smoothly, her body tense and ready to move if she needed to. The metallic stench of blood was overwhelming, the cloying sweetness of it having saturated the room. The faint draft of cold air that puffed past as the wind shifted smelled crisp and cold; a startling contrast to the chaos around them.

The broken pieces of a ceramic mug clattered noisily as Deneb moved them aside with a toe. She flinched, the sudden noise seeming to echo down the hall. For a moment nobody moved…then the lack of life continued.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. What had really happened here? The humans were dead, and Ral had said there was danger, yet as far as she could tell there was nothing in the room that posed a treat.

She froze about half way across the room. If she was seeing things, it would be possible that she was missing things as well, "Deneb," she hissed quickly, "what is here? What do you see?"

**Ral/Deneb frowned and looked about himself, "A lot of dead bodies. Killed in completely ridiculous manners. On the other hand, I am dead. My opinion may be no more reliable than yours."**

"Perhaps I have died as well," she muttered darkly as she made quick work of the rest of the space to the door on the far side of the room. Her first step into the snow was a shock, the searing cold biting into her feet immediately.

**The building was stone on the outside. Stone most likely pulled from the mountain that it was perched on. Cold snow fell gently from the sky, covering the bare rock of the mountain. The air was thin, telling it's own tale about the altitude of the base. The view was expansive, other peaks surrounded them creating a pocket valley covered in the pointed green carpet of evergreens below the treeline. The sky was a clear deep blue without a cloud visible anywhere.**

**From behind her, "Now that, is a view."**

The Queen nodded, alien green eyes taking in the details of the scene as she walked away from the doorway and to the edge of the small plateau, "Indeed. I have seen many things in my lifetime, rarely do I…"

Movement flickered off to their left, she barely caught it before it was too late. The Dart came screaming out of the sky, the white light of its culling beam scouring the ground as it bore down upon them. She pivoted on a heel and grabbed the front of the Knight's jump suit, hauling him toward her as the beam passed just behind him. Already the ship was turning for another pass. She sensed weapons powering.

The wraith's eyes went wide and she bit out an oath before throwing both herself and the human down a small incline. She grunted as they bounced off a rock on the way down, managing to take most of the impact and keep the human away from the hard surface. They spun to a stop in the deep snow, sheltered by boulders that half obscured the skyline. It would take a very skilled pilot to make the shot, and she was willing to bet that the wraith above them didn't have the ability to thread the needle well enough to reach them with either fire or beam.

**All Ral knew was that he was surrounded by wet cold, something hot was on top of him, and he was contemplating murder. He bucked and heaved trying to dislodge the wraith on top of him and failing utterly. He did, however, manage to spin so the Queen's weight rested on his stomach rather than the small of his back. He wriggled one hand free and thrust it out of the snow reaching up and grabbing whatever he could reach and yanked backwards, getting his other hand underneath her, he spun and pitched her as best as he could into the nearest snow bank.**

**Ral came surging out of the snow, swearing in some foreign language until he finally managed to get something intelligible out, "Lord and Lady, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"**

She came up sputtering, the cold shock of the snow granting her a moment of clarity. The Dart was gone, all that was left was a fuming Knight, "I…don't know. There was a Dart, I thought…" she devolved into a few choice words in wraith, none of them complimentary. The Queen hauled herself out of the snow bank with as much dignity as she could muster. She almost pulled it off, though the shivers were starting as the snow in her hair began to melt.

**Ral looked to the heavens as though pleading for something, "Oh right, you're hallucinating. Now I remember," He shook his head. "Look, doesn't matter now. Let's just find the gate, get the others, and get the hell out of here. Maybe DocKenzie can mad scientist the Crazy out of you."**

She snarled at him, turned on a heel, and stalked down the hill.

The Dart was back.

The wraith ignored it, and the human trailed behind her. She moved with purpose for several minutes, her breath creating white plumes in front of her as they picked their way down the mountain.

**Ral rolled his eyes and chased after the irate queen, "Hold on, wait up. Do you have any idea where you're going?" The Knight looked around him, "I hope so, cause I have no idea where we are... Let alone the Gate."**

"You have been here precisely as long as I have- maybe longer as I've apparently lost my mind," she tossed her head, shaking melted snow-water free as she continued down the hill. She lost her footing, sliding several feet down the hill but remaining upright…it did not improve her mood.

**Ral came sliding after her, skating smoothly down the slope to arrive at her side, "You okay?"**

"I'm fine," she snapped, taking another step forward. One moment she was walking, the next she was up side down dangling from a tree. The rope dug painfully into her ankle as a gruff voice shouted, "hands in the air!"

**Ral's eyes rolled sky ward as he turned to look at the dirty leather-clad human pointing a crossbow at them, and the Wraith hanging up side down quite calmly. The human with the crossbow edged closer, "You don't look like you're from the God's house. Why are you here?" He seemed to perk up suddenly, "Did the Ancestors send you? Are you here to..." he cut off abruptly as Ral hit him in the throat, dropping him.**

"**I want nothing of your side quests," Ral growled and turned back to the wraith, "Why are you still up there?"**

The wraith blinked at him as she rotated slowly, her hair dangling almost to the snow, "I wasn't sure that it was actually happening," she said simply.

"**I suppose that makes sense..." He leaned in and examined her closely, "You seemed pretty lucid. I sort of hoped you'd... I don't know... pulled yourself together. Or something."**

"Since we began our movements outside, I have been hounded by a Dart, fallen into an ice cave, was shot with a none too pleasant dart gun from Earth, and subsequently caught on fire, and had a wave overtake us…the same kind you would find in a large body of water. Up side down wasn't much of a stretch."

She flinched, her eyes narrowing as she glared down at the man on the ground, "I'm assuming he didn't just shoot me."

**Ral glanced down at the soon-to-be-dead man on the ground, "No... wow... okay new plan, I get you down and we get out of here. We can send somebody back for the others." Ral carefully set the S curved sword aside and searched the native, quickly finding the crude knife he carried and moved back to where Altair swung gently back and forth from an ankle, "You have no idea how hard I'm resisting making a piñata joke right now." He set the knife to the rope, "Just so we're clear, you are falling right," He cut the rope with two sharp jerks, "Now."**

She tumbled down, twisting in the air and landing more or less on her feet, "Piñata? Never mind. It's no good," her face was studiously neutral, though she was a little tight around the eyes as the headache returned, "We need a code from the humans to get back to Atlantis. I can use the gate, but they keep a shield on their side, we could step in, but not through."

"**So we have to go back..." he turned and looked back up the rough slope they had just slid down, up farther to where the ancient stone fort stood high above them, "Up there? To get a radio? ...remind me why I hang out with you people?"**

**.o0o.**

"Just a…little…further…" Doctor Kenna MacKenzie wasn't about to admit it, but she was stuck. She, being the smallest of the group, had managed to wedge herself between the bars of her cell, trying in vein to reach the lock picks that lay forgotten in the hallway with her toes.

"You're not any bloody closer Kenna," Colonel Aaren rested her forehead against the bars.

"Oh I don't know, she just might get there."

"Shut up Bradshaw."

"**Oh you people are just ridiculous."**

"**And I suppose you have a better ideaaa..." Bradshaw turned only to find Emily in the process of striping out of her jumpsuit, "Hello Corporal Watcher." **

"**Bradshaw! Turn around!" Emily didn't shriek, "Turn around now, damn it!"**

**Bradshaw turned toward the wall with a stupid grin on his face as Emily approached the bars of the cage tying the legs of the jumpsuit together and tossing the resulting loop over the lock picks while holding onto the arms of the suit. Then slowly she dragged the whole assembly back toward herself. The heavy fabric dragged the lock picks across the stone floor until finally, after several tosses, the lock pick was close enough to reach. She picked it up, turning to the rest of the population of her cell, one hand on cocked hips, "So I don't suppose any of you know how to use these things?"**

"**Does that mean I can turn around now?" Bradshaw asked.**

"**NO!" Emily did shriek this time and quickly pulled her jumpsuit back on, and only a few moments after that had her cell door open.**

Commodore Aaren had watched the proceedings in silence. When it as obvious that Corporal Watcher had a hold of the lock picks, Tabby poked her sister, "Looks like you'd got a more inventive team than you thought. Give the girl some credit."

Colonel Aaren turned back to the hall, an encouraging grin splitting her face as she watched Emily smoothly work the lock, "Corporal, I'm not going to ask why you know how to work locks like that, but if you get me out of this damned cell, I'll give you a week's leave."

Emily laughed as she crossed the hall, "Sure thing Colonel, give me just a moment," and with that she kneeled in front of the Aaren's cell door and began to bump the tumblers.

**A moment later the door swung open and Emily looked up at the Colonel with a smile on her face, "Done and done Colonel."**

**Colonel Aaren nodded once to her Corporal and took off in the direction that the Wraith and Ral had vanished, intending to have more than a few words with both of them. At length.**

While the Colonel was stalking toward the door at the end of the hall, the Knight and the Wraith were doing precisely the same thing from the other direction. The Colonel reached the door a second earlier, opening it in time to see Ral get dragged backward and have the Queen step aggressively in front of him.

The wraith blinked, narrowing her eyes at the Colonel, her posture relaxed marginally, "Oh, it's only you."

"**For the love of all the Ascendents and Ancestors who came before me HELP!" Ral was prying at the wraith grip on his arm in a sort of resigned and desperate fashion.**

**The Colonel looked the two up and down then focused on Ral, "Report!" her voice snapped.**

**Ral rolled his eyes, "Okay, again, not under your command. Second she's still crazy and it's getting worse. She said we need a transmitter or something to make your gate work?"**

Aaren stared at the both of them for a long moment, "We need a way to transmit our IDC code. Corporal?"

"On it," Corporal Watcher strode past them and into the rest of the base in search of their gear, or something that she could rig to send a signal.

The Queen shifted, seeming to notice Ral prying at her hand. She let him go, allowing her hands to drop to her sides. She flinched, closed her eyes and went absolutely rigid as she drew a slow breath between her teeth.

The wraith wavered on her feet and Kenna stepped forward, placing a hand against her pale green forehead, "She's burning up," the doctor said with a frown.

The Queen moved out from under Kenna's hand, her eyes still closed as she stepped back and leaned against one of the cells, her body sagging.

**Ral caught the Queen before she traveled any further down toward the floor, "That's great. Can we get home before she sets herself on fire... or far more importantly, me?"**

"**I've got a radio... I think." Emily came back into the room with a handset attached to an entire backpack, "When was this thing made, World War Two?"**

"**Will it work?" Sam's voice was tired.**

"**If we get close enough and we can get them to listen to us, sure."**

"**Great, lets get the Hell out of here."**

.o0o.

"Let me get this straight: you hiked to the gate, through the snow, with no shoes, and used a backpack radio to send through your IDC?" Doctor Day managed to keep his voice mostly even as he thought about what they must have gone through.

"Yes Sir, that would be an adequate summation," the Colonel took another sip from her steaming cup of tea. The liquid burned the entire way down, warming her from the core. It was marvelous.

"And the wraith?"

"Kenna took her straight to the med bay, she was out by the time we got to the gate. The Doc seems to have a plan, and was pretty sure it would work."

Day nodded, then his brow furrowed, "And Brian?"

Colonel Aaren didn't blink, "The prisoner attempted to escape when we stepped through the gate, and we had to bring him down."

Doctor Day's office was silent for a long moment. The Director of Atlantis stared at the ranking military officer. They both knew the story was a fabrication. The terrorist Brian had seemed like an ideal solution- they had a hungry wraith, and a prisoner that was screaming himself to death. A month had passed since they had captured him, and while his voice was long gone, he had continued to scream. Whatever it was that he was seeing, it wasn't leaving him.

What they had done had been an act of mercy.

Dr. Day told himself this for the hundredth time, knowing that the true act would have been a bullet to the skull. Instead, he allowed his people to feed the terrorist to a monster.

Day had insisted that the feeding happen off base, and that he was not to know about it. The Colonel had scheduled a prisoner transfer and dialed the gate herself.

He looked at her, noting the strain on her face and the dark shadows under her eyes, "And the others?" he asked quietly.

"My team went to the med bay, and will no doubt be well taken care of. Bumps, bruises, and a bit of frost bite, but I imagine we'll all be fine. Will that be all Sir?" She really wanted a hot bath and some new clothes.

"That will be all."

Colonel Aaren stood smartly, then padded out of the room.

"Colonel?" Day's voice reached her just outside the door. She paused.

"It's good to have you back."

She smiled as she headed for her quarters.

.o0o.

A day later, the world swam into painfully bright focus. The Queen closed her eyes tightly and drew a long, slow breath, held it for a beat, then let it out.

**Ral lounged on the next bed, somebody's well thumbed paper-back open in his hand. He turned the page slowly his eyes never leaving the book, "Welcome back to the world of the living."**

The wraith swallowed, trying to work some moisture back into her mouth, "Was I gone?" her voice was raspy, weak.

"**Debatable," Ral put the book down and rolled to a sitting position, "how do you feel? Less crazy?"**

The Queen turned her head in a slow, deliberate motion. She opened her eyes, half closing them again as they adjusted to the light of the infirmary, "Crazy?"

**Ral snorted and fell back onto his bed, "Yeah. Crazy. Unable to tell the difference between fact and delusion...kept on calling me Deneb." He rolled his head to look at her, "Who the Hell is Deneb anyway?"**

She flinched, then carefully schooled her features into an unreadable mask as she held him with her gaze. For a moment it looked like she wasn't going to say anything, then she broke, turning away from him to stare at the ceiling, "He was my First, and my brother."

"**Huh," was all Ral responded with and went back to staring at the ceiling. The moment stretched, the Knight seeming to be content with the silence before he looked back to the Queen, "So why did you keep calling ME Deneb? As I am clearly not a wraith...or related to you for that matter."**

"I don't know," they sat in silence. He seeming content to simply relax, she frowning slightly, her brow creased in thought, "The last thing I clearly remember is the Jumper blowing."

"**Wow. You have been out of it for a while. Its...some time has passed. So you don't remember the army of small Banes?"**

She jerked, half sitting up before falling back to the pillow as her world swam.

"I have no recollection of this, nothing is clear," she hissed, frustration evident in her tone.

"**Then I really wouldn't recommend going in to DocKenzie's office..." Ral rocked himself to his feet, "Well, now that you're conscious, my time as crazy wraith wrangler is done. At least we fed you before all of this went down. So, you ought to be back on your feet soon."**

The wraith smiled briefly, a ghost of a memory surfacing- the sensation of the sweet thrill of life that she had taken from the one the humans had called "terrorist."

She moved more slowly this time, levering herself up into a sitting position. Curiosity, dread, and worry warred inside her. She did not like the fact that she was missing a decent section of time- perhaps even days. What had happened? If she had been talking about her brother, calling him by his given name, what else might they know?

"Ral," she spoke just as the human got to the door, "you said I spoke of Deneb. Did I…talk about anyone else?"

**Ral paused and turned back to her, "To me, or the rest of the humans?"**

She blanched, "Both. Anything I might have said. I need to know what they know, what you know. Discretion is…important among my people."

"**Well..." he started ticking things off on his fingers, "You told the Colonel about your ancestor on the surveillance video, thus why you were working with the Atlantians' as apposed to eating them. You told me all about what happened to your Hive, since you decided it would be fun to relive it, and how much it freaked you the Hell out was readily apparent. You told me about how your other brother tried to kill you and Deneb killed him instead. You also might have spent some time muttering the names of the rest of your crew in their somewhere. Am I forgetting anything...?" he looked thoughtful for a long moment then snapped his fingers, "Oh yeah. You think I'm clever."**

She openly gaped at him as her mind whirled, playing several different scenarios in a matter of heartbeats. She seemed to come back to herself and she closed her jaws with a click, her eyes darting briefly to the door and back to the Knight, "I appreciate your candor."

**Ral smiled back, "Glad you're pulling yourself together. I'll see you around, Altair." And the med bay door slid shut behind him.**

The use of her true name was such a shock that she moved without thinking. She meant to follow the human and learn what else he might know, instead, the world tilted crazily and the floor rose up to meet her. The wraith made a grab for support, trying to slow or stop her descent. The resulting clatter was nothing short of spectacular as the rolling side table and IV tree went down with her.

**There was a moment of silence, then the door slid back open and Ral looked down at the crumpled wraith on the floor. He took his time taking in the view, the sheets had been dragged with her off the bed, and the glass of water that had been on the table next to where she had been resting had also accompanied her down to the floor. The wraith herself was possibly in the most undignified position he'd ever seen her; especially given the areas covered by a hospital gown. "Need some help?"**

She spent the next several moments breathing, and relearning which direction was up. She lifted her gaze, her long black hair obscuring her vision. The wraith started to jerk her head to clear her eyes, but thought better of it and stopped herself mid motion. Instead she slowly rolled onto her back, looking up at the human, "Do the others know?"

"**Your name?" He crouched down over her looking straight down onto her face, "Nope. That's my prize." He sighed and moved to her side, "Alright lets get you back up there." He slid his arms under her legs and behind her shoulders and lifted her easily back onto the bed. He tucked the covers around her and started straightening everything that she had disarrayed with her fall.**

She wanted to resist, to save face, but the fatigue of what had happened to her mixed with the relief that the others did not know, and left her calm under his hands.

"Your prize?" her tone was detached, though her eyes were full of gratitude as she watched him work.

"**We had a bet. You lost. Your name was your fore fit." He finished straightening everything back to where it had been and stood back to survey her and his handy work before nodding slightly to himself. "Next time you try to get up make sure your legs work first." He shook his head, smiled and muttered something to himself under his breath.**

She tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing as she tried to pick up his faint words, "…I'll keep that in mind." The Queen stared harder, feeling that the human was somehow mocking her, "What is it that you are saying?"

**He paused hand on the door plate and looked over his shoulder at her, "Nothing really. Just remembering some things from home."**

Altair perked up slightly, her curiosity aroused. He was so unlike the other humans, and he had a talent for holding her interest, "You said you came from 'far away', where is that?" she paused, seeming to consider her words, "I do not ask you this as a wraith looking for a healthier food supply. You know one of my closest kept secrets, and with it you have a part of me, I would at least know a little of your home." Something about the cadence of her speech was reminiscent of court- something strictly formal and disciplined.

**Ral's expression cooled. "Sorry your majesty, I'm not going to give you the Temple's gate address and I know of no other meaningful way to tell you where my home is." His tone was biting and carried clearly his growing frustration with seeming everyone's assumption that he would start taking orders like a good little soldier.**

She closed her eyes and drew a long breath. This human's moods shifted quickly, and his eyes said clearly that he was not going to give her anything at this rate.

Formality didn't seem to work with him. He was not someone that she needed to battle, and so far, he had been the closest thing she'd had to a kind face in the month or so that she'd been at Atlantis.

She adapted a tone that she would have used with her brother, familiar, casual- something to be used when they were alone in each other's company, "Ral, I am not looking for an address- merely something to help me better understand you. I've…seen a lot during my lifespan, but I know nothing of the Knights of Ascension, and have never before met a human who felt no fear."

**Ral stared at her as though weighing something, "I was saying how you reminded me of my sister. She never looks before she leaps either."**

"You have family then," she tried to imagine the Knight in a more domestic setting, "Do you miss them?"

"**Of course," Ral snorted, "But they're the reason I'm out here. My parents are Knights, and my sister is in training to become a knight. Or at least, she was when I left," he chuckled to himself, "She's never going to let me hear the end of losing all my gear."**

"You would tell her of this?" she found herself smiling, "She is young in her lifespan- younger than you."

"**She'd find out somehow. As they say, 'rumor is the only truly-faster-than-light method of communication.' But yeah, she's my little sis. Everything I tell her about what it's actually like out here will make one more mistake she won't make. Or one more situation that nobody could have foreseen, but she will. So yeah, I'll catch an endless amount of teasing from her, but if that means the tazer won't get her, then I can take it."**

The wraith nodded in understanding, and a wave of grief for the loss of her own brother crashed down upon her. It was sudden and intense, catching her completely off guard.

She swallowed hard, bringing a mostly steady hand up to tuck her hair back behind her ear, "All lessons come with a price," the corner of her mouth quirked in a tired half smile, "the trick is making sure you're not the one paying it."

**Ral snorted, "I suppose so." he stood, stretching, "Rest. Don't get up until the doc tells you you can. And don't go into her office. I've spent too much time in the last day or so keeping you in one piece for you to break your neck getting out of bed."**

She laced her fingers across her belly, seeming to settle more deeply into the bed. She allowed her eyes to half lid as the Knight headed to the door.

"Ral?"

He paused, hand hovering over the switch.

"Thank you."

The door slid smoothly shut behind him.


	5. The Game

AN: I thought I'd put together a little one-off scene. There are a lot of fun little bits that have been written, but haven't been worked into one of our episodes proper. Instead of letting them sit, we've decided to toss them out occasionally while we are working on writing the next large section. We haven't abandoned Atlantis Base 2, and do have the next section in the works.

.o0o.

The Game

By Katie Lipton

.o0o.

What had started as a simple sparring match had turned into an all day training secession and the most vicious game of cat and mouse the Pegasus galaxy had ever seen. It had taken a mere twenty minutes for the activities to escape the gym and escalate to the halls.

The Queen had been listless since the last mission, and needed a bit of exercise to keep from going mad within the confines of the human city. Luckily, she had a city full of marines to help her burn off some extra energy.

At first, Dr. Day had been concerned about the activities in the gym and the surrounding halls, but after the Queen had "killed" her opponent and three bystanders by simply laying her closed hand on them and announcing them dead, he decided that his men could use the study of wraith tactics and sent in a squad of marines; not to put a stop to the exercise, but to participate. The men were all armed with wraith weapons, and had been assured that they would not become casualties. After a couple of skirmishes, it had become evident that the men were enjoying themselves, and the free adrenaline rush of playing cat and mouse with a wraith.

A laugh brought Day back to himself, as the Queen on the monitor dropped into the middle of a group of three marines and proceeded to lay into them. Day turned to find Lieutenant Bradshaw watching the screen with interest, an ice pack held to his right temple.

"What happened to you?" Day asked as, on the monitor, the Queen shoved one of the marines with just enough force to knock him back off his feet, but not enough to do him any harm, then proceeded to "kill" the second and "incapacitate" the third before moving around the corner. Her movements were sure and smooth- it was obvious that she was no stranger to hand-to-hand combat and ground fighting.

"This?" Bradshaw lowered the ice pack and showed the rapidly forming black eye, "I decided to up the ante a bit," he laughed at Day's horrified expression, "she had taken away my stunner and tossed me over a counter in the mess hall, so I shot her," he half gestured to the 9mm strapped to his hip.

"Shot her? With your pistol?"

"Yeah. Don't look at me like that, it was an upper arm shot…not like it would actually hurt her. Anyway, she threw a chair at me."

"Did you stop to think that you might deserve it?" Day deadpanned.

"Might deserve what?" Colonel Aaren asked as she stepped into Day's office.

Bradshaw repeated his story to the amused Colonel as they continued to follow the Queen's progress on the monitors. There was one point where she stopped and looked directly into one of the cameras, seeming to look at them as she said something with a grin, then pulled a strip of fabric from inside her sleeve and bound the camera.

Aaren frowned as she reached past Dr. Day and scanned through the other cameras in that hall. Nothing. The Queen was entirely lost from sight. The Colonel touched her radio, sending men to the hall to retrieve their wayward alien. When they got there, there was no sign of the wraith.

The Queen slipped into the Jumper bay, silent as a shadow as she headed toward the back where Doctor Russell had been studying three of the Darts that they had brought in from the Hive. The dark skinned Doctor had been almost beyond herself with excitement when she was told that she could bring the Darts back to Atlantis, and had spent the past two days running various tests on the ships. One Dart lay in pieces, the second had an access panel pulled open and various wires led to testing equipment, and the third remained untouched.

Doctor Russell had learned more about Wraith technology in the past eighteen hours than she had in several months previous, and she knew that she had really only just begun. She lay under the second Dart, taking readings from the control crystals that she had exposed on the underbelly of the ship as she tried to further understand the energy beams the Wraith used to cull.

A shadow passed between the doctor and her work light, "This is easier with the ship on, you know, it hovers- you don't have to lay on the ground."

Monique flinched violently, letting out a little yelp as she clocked herself on the bottom of the Dart, "Where the Hell did you come from?"

The wraith only smiled as she walked calmly toward the third Dart.

"What are you doing?" Doctor Russell scrambled to her feet, her shoulders tense as she watched the alien trail her fingers along the length of the Dart as she took a slow lap of the ship.

"Why Doctor," the Queen purred, a satisfied smile on her face, "I am doing my part as an ally- I'm about to teach you about Wraith Fighters."

The Dart let out a whine as the engine kicked on. Doctor Russell dropped her tablet with a yelp, "Oh no. No no no. You can't do that!"

She scrambled and grabbed the tablet, entering the code to close the roof iris as the city complied with agonizing slowness. Time seemed to slow as the Queen slipped into the Dart, the canopy going opaque. The Dart soared up toward the closing space, then slipped through at the last moment with a gut-wrenching roll.

Colonel Aaren was in a Jumper less then two minutes later, "Stand down, I repeat, stand down. Bring the Dart back to the jumper bay immediately," Aaren's tone booked no argument. She maneuvered the cloaked Jumper to hover slightly above where the Dart was taking soaring laps around the city.

There was a long moment of radio silence, as the Dart banked in another long lazy turn, the completely opaque cockpit masking the Queen, making it impossible to see if she was even wearing her radio. Then the multi tonal voice of the Queen hissed through, "I cannot see you, but I know you are there. Your men are allowed recreation- do I not deserve some time as well?" Her voice was somewhat breathless, the obvious excitement and joy in her tone was strange to hear.

"Not out unsupervised in a Dart you don't!" Aaren's voice had an edge to it as she watched the Dart complete its lazy holding pattern and start in on another lap. The idea that the alien could break atmo and send out a signal at any time was not comforting. For the first time since they had captured her, the wraith was entirely on her own and there was nothing they could do about it short of shooting her out of the sky, "I'm saying this for the last time, stand down and get that Dart back to the bloody Jumper bay."

Again silence, and the holding pattern continued, then the Dart banked steeply to the right, rolling over its previous path and dropping into a steep dive, "I am not unreasonable. If I cannot have recreational time, then let us call this a continuation of your training in Wraith tactics," there was a click and the radio went silent.

Inside, the Gateroom was a flurry of activity as the city reacted and alarms sounded in response to the Dart overhead. Corporal Watcher had the wraith's tracker displayed on one of the large screens, and watched in fascination as the dot took laps about the city at a break-neck pace, then suddenly the path changed and the speed ramped up. The dot shot straight through the center of the city, weaving impossibly quickly through the spires. There was a high-pitched whine as the Dart came screaming past the windows of the Gateroom, so close that any of the humans could have reached out and touched the belly of the ship. A moment or two later, a Jumper flashed by.

Though the Colonel would never admit it, the wraith was an impressive pilot. Aaren had to push the Jumper hard to keep the Dart in line of sight.

"This is not a bleeding training exercise, get that Dart down now or I'll shoot you out of the flipping sky," Aaren snarled into her mic.

"You know Colonel," the Queen's tone was maddeningly calm as the Dart zipped down the side of a tower, then inverted to loop under a bridge, "if you were to ask me, I might be inclined to grant you that request."

Aaren's knee jerk reaction was to threaten the alien until the craft was back on the ground. She closed her eyes and drew a long breath, wanting very much to shoot her wayward ally. When she spoke, it was through gritted teeth, "Would you please bring the Dart back to the bay so I don't have to blow you out of the sky?"

The Queen's laughter was brief and genuine, but much to the Colonel's surprise, the Dart leveled out and turned back toward the bay. A few moments later they were all standing in the bay, Aaren glaring at the Queen.

"Now," the alien began, a wicked smile on her face, though she kept a respectful distance from the fuming Colonel, "where were we?"

Without warning, the wraith pivoted on a heel, grabbing the nearest marine and pinning him against the Dart. She laid her closed feeding hand on him, and whispered, "better luck next time," then she bounded from the room amid a hail of stunner bolts. The game was on.


End file.
